The Todd Family/ Hooligan Central

OK, time does fly

2012-01-10T13:59:00.001-08:00

well, here we are again at hooligan central :o). It's been awhile since I updated this, but necessity has intervened....it's a good place to put a picture for those to see who aren't necessarily on facebook. So this is for you Welty Clan :o). Look how big my kids are! We had a wonderful but interesting year last year, with Cami graduating from high school, Kendra transferring to CSUN, and Ben starting high school. Throw in my mom being diagnosed with ovarian cancer, lots of theater rehearsals and performances, lots of martial arts, lots of homeschooling, lots of Boy Scouts..... the hooligans have been BUSY!! Fast forward to now: We just jumped back into school with Ben. Cami and Kendra are on winter break and will start college again end of January. Kendra is studying Mechanical Engineering at CSUN and loves being in roomfuls of geeks just like herself (lovely gracious geeks, in case she reads this ;o) ). Cami is looking towards majoring in something artsy/fashion designy....yes, my girl hooligans are totally different animals. Totally. Anyway. Ben is my quirky guy in 9th grade, hates schoolWORK, loves yugioh competitions, and is a wonderful musician, actor, and all around instigator. He also likes boyscouts and Taekwondo. But not school. Life is still not, nor has ever been, dull around our house. We also have 4 well loved rodent type animals in residence. 2 guinea pigs, and 2 big fat brown rats that are Kendra's babies. Here is a bigger version of the sidebar pic that I just updated.

End of the (not so) evil/crazy Hooligan weekend/Maranatha

2010-11-15T00:38:00.000-08:00

Actually, not evil at all, since God works all things for our good :o). The Moby Dick/Airplane dream might be considered evil.....hmm. Anyway, in a nutshell, to put a tidy ending on the weekend:
Saturday:
Got up early with strange airplane visions still lingering...
Had quiet time in bed, thanked God for the gift of another day of LIFE
Made huge pan of brownies to take to the Richardson memorial service (praying for Karen's family & thanking God for her amazing example of living well and dying well, while I stirred brownie batter)
Scrambled to get candid photos of Cami on disk to turn in to the yearbook person at my mtg
Drove H2 to Choir practice
Dropped brownies off at church
Drove across town to homeschool mtg.
Wished I could be at the memorial service instead.
Drove back across town to pick H2 up.
Shipped H2 home with friends instead.
Drove straight over to church to help serve food & clean up at the memorial service reception.
Made it home before 4pm so H1 could have the car to drive to work.
Crashed for about 1 hr
Spent rest of evening working through the First Aid merit badge with Ben.
Took advil for pounding headache around 8pm
Took a mcflurry/caffeine break with Ben and Cami around 8:30..advil alone was not cutting it.
Finished merit badge work with Ben around 10pm. Headache MUCH better after caffeine.
Computer-ized till about 12:30
Fell asleep on couch waiting for H1 to call telling me she was driving home (yes, I'm paranoid).
Woke up when H1 called around 1:30am. Waited for her to get home. Went to bed.
Up, church, H-dad/H3 off to merit badge workshop, In & Out with Mom after church
Helped with Jr. Choir during evening service
H3 came in late, thumbs up on the merit badge...He passed it!! Yes!!
Home, dinner
Extreme Home Makeover, Undercover Boss and Mom & Dad's house with H1
and here we are, all in one piece, still alive and praising the Lord.
Looking about the house, I take back the word "tidy"
Tomorrow is Monday......Maranatha.

Strange Hooligan Dreams....

2010-11-14T23:57:00.000-08:00

So, After I went to bed Fri. night....I had one of those really strange dreams where you just feel obligated - in your dream of course - to wake yourself up and start over or you're doomed as doomed can be. I dreamed I *bought* (yes, bought) a huge, pure white, jumbo jet. You know...like a 747 or something. ??? It was totally an impulse buy. As soon as I did it, and couldn't get a refund, I came to my senses (no duh), realizing I had *nowhere* to park this monstrosity (like...what was I thinking of *doing* with it anyway...walking it like a dog??), and when H-dad found out, he was going to have a COW. Now this was a very vivid dream. I just remember in my dream being terrified that my poor husband was going to find out I did this horrible, embarrassing thing...and at that point in my dream, realized it *was* a dream as I would never be this stupid in real life, and if I wanted a decent nights sleep with a good dream I better wake up from this one. So I woke up, shook my head around in the dark to erase the visions of "Moby Dick The Airplane", and went back to sleep. Ugh. Does Hooligan Weirdness have no limits??? Psychoanalyze THAT, why dontcha....

It's Mad Mad Mad Mad Hooligan Weekend

2010-11-14T16:35:00.000-08:00

Well, it has definitely been one of those densely packed sort of weekends, with no fewer than 8 separate events between the 5 of us, NOT including church. I can't say I look forward to such weekends, which, mercifully don't happen all *that* often, but they are certainly times of learning to trust God, serve others joyfully (I hope) and enjoy/endure each event as it happens. In typical hooligan fashion, H3 managed to misplace towel, t-shirt, flip flops, AND jacket....yes all of them....at the pool after swimming on Friday. I suppose it was a fitting ending to a less than ideal morning, the details of which are not worth printing, however it was not an auspicious start to the weekend. The afternoon was spent helping (a somewhat demoralized by this time) H3 trudge through the First Aid merit badge workbook in preparation for the merit badge workshop on Sun. Sort of the blitz approach. And in between, H-dad's languishing pile of dark socks, and H3's good white shirt and black pants were rushed through the laundry. Then H2 got an extra unexpected babysitting job, which was good ($, you know), but one more trip across town. H-dad home early, frantically collecting this and that for the boyscout over-nighter. Everybody ate something. I think. I took H3 over to Master's College where he and a group from his choir at church were singing for their choir director's Senior Recital. She is a wonderful college student who has sacrificed her time to serve them, so it was great for the kids to have a opportunity to serve her this way. It meant H3 had to be late to his campout, but it was good for him to sacrifice his time. Thats him 2nd from the right...

So off went the hooligan boys to camp. H1 was hoping to watch The Scarlet Pimpernel, but it was not to be found, and instead sparked a facebook thread of inspiring proportion....something to do with adulterous bread, and holey English toast. hmm. H2, back from babysitting, was in the kitchen dangerously flinging chocolate around without a recipe.

Something resembling chocolate truffles emerged eventually, but we still aren't exactly sure what went in the pot. To quote H1: "H2's inventing something in the kitchen. I'm scared." I celebrated the end of the day horizontally. With popcorn. and chocolate. and "Back to the Future". Fell asleep in front of the evil box, finally went up to bed and spent time with the "Best Book", and Valley of Vision. The end.

Where have all the Hooligans gone?

2010-11-10T13:31:00.000-08:00

OK, due to overwhelming pressure from my adoring fans (that would be Grandma), I'll *try* to pick back up my hooligan ravings on occasion. Status: we're all alive....major bloggy updates: H1 is now a sophmore in college and looking possible toward transferring as an engineering major next year. H2 has major senioritis. H3 is waaaaaay taller than he was a year and a half ago, and just as ornery. I'll be changing my wallpaper, and my life is crazy right now. And God is still good at all times. OK, I picked "Golden Leaves" for my new wall paper. Enjoy. Here are some random pics of what the hooligans have been up to lately. You'll notice, I'm sure, that there are no pics of H1. Lets just say that the best photo I have of her at the moment is one she won't let me post. I won't say why, except it has something to do with our copier scanner and what it might look like if you put your face on the glass an hit "copy". Heh. Extreme, dire, malevolent hooligan threats have been issued pertaining to what she might do should this photo ever come to light.......

H3's recent campout with Boyscouts to Whitney Portal/Owen's Valley

H3's been enjoying golf classes with The First Tee of Pasadena down by the Rose Bowl every Mon.

H3 waiting his turn to dive in the pool. Both he and H2 do sports with our homeschool group on Fridays

All of H2's favorite people on earth. Over for a partaaaaayyy a few weeks back.

my beautiful and talented H2 doing something she loves...

Fall Court of Honor Troup 316. H3 is 2nd from right. He loves boyscouts. Just finished tenderfoot rank, and was elected to be the new Chaplain's Aide (Lord help us....). H-dad, Eagle Scout extraordinaire, is having fun also :o).

Like my new temporary wallpaper??

2009-06-08T00:06:00.000-07:00

Kendra will be graduating on Fri with the rest of her APS class. Here they all are.

Kendra is right by the bottom left corner of the banner, in the white shirt. Hard to believe. Here is the pic I sent with her graduation announcements.

more pictures to follow.....

And into June we go...

2009-06-07T23:47:00.000-07:00

Here is tiny hooligan giving a cheesy smile at his end of year piano recital. The end of a busy year, the beginning of another (I kid you not). He is exceptionally proud of the gold cup he got for getting superior ratings 3 years in a row at the NFMC Festival. I believe the cups get larger every time for consecutive superiors, so he has something to work toward again.

Both Ben and Cami earned their new Taekwondo belts this last week. Kudos to H2 and H3!! They both love it, and certainly benefit from the release of latent hooligan agression every week. Hiya!

May mayhem

2009-06-07T22:49:00.000-07:00

So, as I related, Jury Duty took up about half of May. Really. After which, between getting the hooligans back on track mentally, and the house dug out a bit, Darryl was scheduled to make his appearance (hi Darryl!!) on the 21st. Which left me about a week. No problem. D arrived on schedule, and we did our annual trek to Disneyland, as well as a trek to CA Adventure. Arriving on a Thurs. gave us an extra day to play.

We had a thoroughly good time at the 2 parks, although it was tiring. We crashed at home on Sun. Darryl had come on Thurs, so Thurs night we went to see the Star Trek movie. Made all the hooligans cover/close eyes for the racy scene, but the rest of it was enjoyed by all. Great movie (minus the racy scene). Monday, Memorial Day, we usually - traditionally even - go up to Ruth and Robins for a picnic, but this particular day they were down at Ruth's sister's laying tile for her. We enjoyed lounging, I'll admit, and later went to see Night at the Museum 2. Sort of a lazy day. And, all good things eventually coming to an end, Darry flew back home Tues., *WITHOUT* leaving any important papers/ID in the van. Yay! H3 was depressed for 3 straight days after Darryl left.

Ben and new legos from Downtown Disney lego store... with my usual disclaimer: "please disregard any floor debris...I know it's there, and it will get vacuumed eventually. Like maybe August."

Here he is folks...H3 in full munchkin regalia! Actually this is the "run of the mill" munchkin costume. In 2 of the shows, he will be the "Mayor of the Munchkin city...", so will have a fancy hat, bright blue jacket, and important looking sash. I won't go into the amount of time that was consumed trying to the right kind of socks for all the hooligans. Yikes. You must admit, however...they are colorful, are they not? "Wizard" is winding down....only a few weeks left!

OK, this is where the Jury Duty post should really be...

2009-06-07T22:48:00.000-07:00

miscellaneous April stuff (by the way, jury duty was Apr 28 - May 14)

2009-06-07T22:21:00.000-07:00

Here's Ben and his good buddy David Monroe at our church's AWANA games. We didn't win or anything, but it was fun. It was the same day as.....

Ben's CAPMT Sonatina competition down at the First Methodist Church in Northridge...a gorgeous church, with a gorgeous piano. H3's looking pretty gorgeous there himself, heh heh. He's a handsome devil all right! Amazing what a shirt and tie can do. Almost seems unnatchr'l! He played very well (has good stage presence at least), and got good comments from the judges. He didn't win anything of course....I mean there are some *really* good kids that played, but he acquitted himself very well. Bravo. (I just want to pinch his cheek when he wears a tie :o), he's so darn cute!)

Ben at Friday swimming

I think this was the National Federation of Music Festival

Well, those hooligan sisters were definitely avoiding the camera in April ('cept for Easter)...too bad for them....

Jury Duty

2009-06-07T21:58:00.000-07:00

Following close on the heels of the plumbers was the (spooky music) dreaded Jury Summons. Having put this off quite long enough, it was time to do my civic duty, which, I hoped, would be swift and painless. I mean, the younger hooligans, being of age to semi-mind themselves, and capable of completing at least a modicum of schoolwork in my absence, would survive for 1 day surely. I was hoping it would be a 1 day stint. Really hoping. Really really hoping. I was actually hoping that they would say I didn't need to come in when I called the night before. Yeah right. Lets just say....*that* didn't happen. In the spirit of true beginners luck, not only did I have to go down to the courthouse, a whole huge group of us got immediately called up to a courtroom, where I was in the first group of 18 called to the jury box, where I further sat for the next 3 weeks. They liked me. I just couldn't find it in myself to gin up disqualifying prejudices of any sort, much to the annoyance, I'm sure, of my loving family. I thus became "juror #9". Long story: 4 days of jury selection (fascinating people watching), another 2 or so weeks of trial. Nutshell version. Young hispanic robbed at alleged gunpoint by big burly hispanic. Lots of very incriminating -- yet admittedly circumstantial-- evidence on the prosecution's part. Lots of doubt-sowing on the side of the defense. Upshot: the guy was positively id'd at least 3 times, there were too many "coincidences", so guilty. Found out after we read the verdict that the defendent had a colorful record of assorted assaults and robberies. On the positive side, it was truly fascinating to watch lawyers in action, and my fellow jurors were the best of people. The ladies on the jury went to lunch every day together for the most part, and enjoyed the company. We enjoyed each other so much that we are planning to do lunch a couple weeks from now, since most of us were from Santa Clarita. The hooligans were very glad to have Mom back to keep things on an even keel (nothing like arbitrating hooligan "discussions" on the cell phone). Actually they did pretty well on their own all things considered, and it was an excercise in independence at least. Alas, there are no interesting pictures of this episode for obvious reasons.

After Easter

2009-06-07T21:37:00.000-07:00

Oh my goodness!! The delinquent nature of my very own self frankly stuns me. I haven't written here since April! Yikes! My penance will have to be all the time it will take to catch this "thang" up. Phooey. It really is such a nice relatively quiet spot (can any "spot" in the context of utter hooliganism be quiet??)compared to the bustle of facebook. I'm having to look at i-photo to remember exactly what *have* I been doing anyway for the last 2 months??? Pathetic in the extreme.

So Easter happened. Obviously. Followed by such things as:

Making DNA models

Spending about 4 days with plumbers ripping my walls out to put in new copper piping -- HOORAY!!!!! (except for the part about the plumbers underfoot for 4 days......followed by the wall-fixers, and the painters). But in the end, NO MORE LEAKS! And *that* dear friends is the salient point.

Easter & everything.....

2009-04-19T00:17:00.000-07:00

So onward into April we have trekked. And after such an auspicious beginning to the month, no less (see previous post). Now the real question is....have I thrown away all the cups in my car yet? The answer is......Heck NO!!! Hah! Actually, though, the trash level in the car is fast approaching critical mass. Time to send out the servants...I mean children....to untrash it! Moving right along, the week before Easter was strangely on the peaceful side. It seemed this year that fate intervened to cause many of our outside commitments to take spring break the same week, so we had no theatre, no PE, no bible study, no AWANA, no High School coop classes, no Friday swimming class.....etc. It was kind of a nice break. I made an attempt to get the kids to get schoolwork done, but we *did* sleep in a few times. Enjoyed a nice lunch out with my dear friend Jeanette Johnson (her kids have shown up in numerous photos on this blog in the past). We went to Habit Burger and ate waaayyy too many (delicious, yummy) onion rings. We received a notice on our front door on Mon or Tues that our turn to get copper pipes installed in our apt. was coming up......"soon". We needed to make sure that everything was cleared out under sinks...blah blah blah..... Ok good. Put it in the back of my mind. We were leaving to go to the farm up in Reedly on Sat. and stay till Sun night. Friday night we got another notice saying that the pipe crew was invading bright and early Mon. morning. Grrr. and Yay!!!!. Somewhat mixed emotions. Nothing like finding out you have a ton of work to do and no time to do it in. We got packing and some cleaning out of the way Sat. morning before we left, however. We had a wonderful Easter weekend in Central CA. Spent Easter morning at Grace Baptist Church in Visalia, enjoying their musical. The weather was gorgeous the whole time we were there. And puppies galore were available for cuddling! One of the Flint dogs had a fling with a couple neighbor dogs, resulting in 8 of the cutest most roly poly puppies I personally have ever seen. Here are some pics of our weekend, and the puppies.....

You'll notice I mentioned Ben's favorite toy. He *loves* this wagon. Every time we go up there he has to drag out the wagon. This time it was full of nasty.....ew....I don't know whats, but he was determined to clean it out so he could play in it. He spent all Sunday afternoon giving the little girls rides around the farm (with puppies in laps). It was very cute. Also notice in the slideshow that Mark's mom and dad were able to make it down this year....a real blessing from the Lord. Mark's dad has had medical issues that have made it very difficult for them to travel much. We were thrilled to see them, and Mark's dad was in really good spirits! God is so good!

April Fool!

2009-04-18T23:52:00.000-07:00

H1 has been plotting, planning, and salivating for nearly 18 years to pull a really good april fool on dear old Mom. She came pretty darn close this year! After Taekwondo class, on Wed. April 1, we all climbed into the van to drive home. Cami spotted a small paper tucked into the windshield wiper...."What's this Mom?"...opens the door and fishes it off the window. "It looks like a......a parking ticket??" Cami was genuinely puzzled. My first internal reaction was "shoot - thats all I need", followed by "What the?????" as I looked around the *public* parking lot. "This makes no sense!....gimme that!" My brain still hadn't registered the stifled giggles coming from the backseat. So Cami showed me this:

I start reading: "Ticket....blah blah blah...violation..Car was carrying too many empty soda cans...." oooooookaaaaaay.......uh huh......sure......(the backseat laughter is *ON* the radar)...."Happy April Fools Day!!!" I looked back at Kendra, who was giggling like a maniac. "Too many empty soda cups?? thats the best you could come up with??" "Well, you know Mom, I had to put *something*....". So she had come across this gag online, and felt compelled to try it out. Heh heh. Oh, and Mark's reaction to the "too many empty soda cups?" ....."You do deserve a ticket for that!"

The evidence

Thanks honey.....

March Madness

2009-04-17T22:42:00.000-07:00

All the kids began rehearsing for Wizard of Oz the beginning of March! It promises to be quite the fun production. Cami and Ben both tried out for leads. They could each try out for 3 different parts, so Cami chose Dorothy, talking crows, and flying crows. Ben tried out to be the Mayor, the gatekeeper, and a flying monkey. Interestingly, Cami got called back once for Dorothy, and then again - not for Dorothy, but for Auntie Em! So off she went to the final callback for A.Em. Final results? Cami is .....duh du du du....Auntie Em, and Ben is the Mayor of the Munchkin city! Happy hooligans all around! They both did great in auditions.

Kendra & friend

The lovely and gracious Kendra always has a blast working in the nursery with me every month. She loves the babies, and they always like her better than me. Boo hoo. Notice the mad scientist look in those hooligan eyes.....obviously hatching some evil plot. I love when I catch this look in her eyes. I'm instantly transported back to when she was about 2 yrs old. I'd call her to come to me, and she would turn around, little fists clenched, shaking with excitement, THIS (see above) look in her eyes as she decided whether to come......or RUUUUUNNNNNN!!!!!!!!! Sigh. my odds back then were never better than 50/50. Yes, she got spanked. It was just too darn fun to run (the thrill of the chase)!

"I look uttery rediculous!....." The indignities a piggy must suffer....

....at the hands of Cami, of course. The queen of all things lacy and frilly. The only one who tortures poor Crega and Padme in such humiliating ways. I ask you. Does that piggy look happy? I don't think so! Poor piggies. Humph.

And now, a male interlude......

Mark and Ben went for a hike down a favorite canyon one Sun. afternoon to check out the state of the waterfall. There had been plenty of rain, as evidenced by the lush green grass along the trail, so there was plenty of water in the creek.

Ben up to pool #2

There are 2 or 3 different pools to climb up, when the waterfall is running nicely. They must be navigated around in order to get to the waterfall itself.

Finally made it!

OK, ok, so it isn't exactly Niagra Falls, but it's a pretty hike in the spring, and is deserving of appreciation because most of the water is gone by June or July.

Now here's a view from close to the waterfall, looking back down the canyon. You can see the mountains clear on the other side of the valley off there in the distance. Very nice view!

Lets see...what else happened in March. Mark was in the thick of tax season. Kids all extremely busy with assorted busynesses. Oh yes! Ben and Cami both did the Certificate of Merit exams for their respective instruments. They both had to play songs, and technique (scales and the like), AND take the theory test for their different levels (Ben did level 5 piano, Cami did level 2 violin). They both scored very well. Ben also played for the Jr. Bach festival this month. Spring is VERY busy in the piano department around here.

Finishing February part 2

2009-04-17T22:08:00.000-07:00

February also brought with it AWANA games and quizzing! The girls did both again this year, and had fun losing in quizzing...

Kendra and Cami with the quiz teams from Crown Valley Com. Church in Acton

Kendra, Cami, and Julie Green

and WINNING!!! in games.....well sort of winning.

....they made it through all 3 semifinal rounds, and got 3rd in the finals! Considering that CVCC is a *very* small church, and they are usually competing with at least a few ginormous churches, they felt extremely successful. They all celebrated at a burger place afterwards. YAY! A happy ending after a not so successful quizzing. Which just goes to show....ya win some...ya lose some! Hopefully you do your best to honor the Lord either way :o)!

Finishing February part 1

2009-04-17T21:03:00.000-07:00

Time to catch up yet again. Bad bad blogger that I am (hanging head in shame). I was maliciously lured away to the evil realm of Facebook. But only temporarily. Never fear......I intend to lovingly attempt to mind my blog - a realm of (relative) peace and tranquility compared to the jabbering nature of Facebook. Both have their place, just as there is a time to appreciate loud parties, and a time to enjoy quiet conversation. So It appears I left things hanging in February. We'll move right along then.....

Burp time!

So here are the hooligans yet again, enjoying lunch with Grandma at the favorite watering hole close to Magic Mountain. This particular occasion featured a rousing burping contest, pitting Grandma against the grandkids. I cleverly captured this telling photo, lest H-Gma try to deny having participated in said contest. Hmmmm. The picture tells all. It was quite a burp, I can tell you!

Valentine's Day Recital

Ben and JT

Mrs. Peterson and Ben

Ben's piano teacher had to reschedule her annual Christmas recital, so she did a Valentine's day one instead. It was a lot of fun, and his first performance of the new year. Emphasis on first.....many others have followed since (I'll get to them eventually). The first pic up there is Ben with JT Watkins. James' sister Jasmine, and Ben, have had back to back lessons since they both started the year Ben was in 2nd grade and Jasmine was in 3rd. They are a wonderful homeschooling family, and James is in Taekwondo with Ben on Wednesdays also.

Catching up on life

2009-02-17T00:21:00.000-08:00

OK, its been too long since I updated! Life is going blazingly fast! (is that a word?). Tax season is here with a vengeance, so Mark is up early and home late...meaning we mostly pass in the dark, and reconnect on weekends :o)! So here is a tiny pictorial synopsis of life since Christmas.

Well, I started out by going down to Pasadena the day after the parade with Mom and Dad Carson to see all the floats. They were AMAZING! But it was very chilly, and crowded. I'll throw in a slide show of all my pics eventually. We had never done this particular adventure, so it was an experience.....

Lovely H3 is graduating in a few short months (sniff!!), so I snapped a few nice pics of her for her graduation slideshow....

OK, this is pretty cheesy, but finishing Music Man was so crazy that I literally didn't get any backstage candids during production week. If you go back several posts you'll see Ben and the girls in costume, though. So, it was a FANTASTIC show! It was so cute...all the little girls in their frilly dresses, and the boys all slicked. I was a head chaperone again for 5 of the 6 performances (4th-6th grade group....oy vey!!), so I was tired by the end, but it was worth it! All the kids did a fabulous job!

Now we are looking forward to......da dada daaaaahhhhh......

Yep, you guessed it.....we're off to see the wizard starting the beginning of March! So we are getting a much enjoyed rest until then. All 3 hooligans are doing this one again.

So....I should introduce the newest Hooligan rodents.....da dada da....drumroll please....?

Meet Rizza and Nim......our first rats! Kendra and Ben are having fun with their new pets. Both their hamsters died right before Christmas.

And last but not least, Ben got to be a weed in the church children's choir musical. It was sort of a gangster-ish, weedy character, and he definitely cut loose and had good time playing it up on stage! (Who?? Ben??...can't imagine!) Here he is in all his weed glory.

HCTTGWN part 4 (read parts 1-3 first!!)

2009-01-09T00:21:00.000-08:00

OK, gotta get the rest of these pics up here and get it done with. Here is our last morning in McCall, and the drive home. We always go to the Christmas House restaurant before we leave and load up on way too much breakfast. The amount of food they serve is phenomenal! It was a fairly uneventful drive home. Cold. Snow. Snowy roads in OR. The cars gradually lost more and more muddy caked ice the further south we went. Ewwww. Anyway, it was a fun trip.

HTTGWN part 3 (read parts 1 and 2 first)

2009-01-08T21:28:00.000-08:00

Well, God was SO good in keeping us from having to drive in any snowstorms. It was just starting to snow when we drove into McCall. It snowed semi-heavily the whole time we were there, and tapered off just before we left. Christmas eve day was spent lounging around, sledding, trekking around and down by the river on snowshoes, playing board games, working puzzles, playing wii in the rec room, and generally having a good time. We were thankful to have been able to borrow enough snowpants to keep everybody dry. They were SO nice to have for playing in the snow. The very, very deep snow, that is really hard to climb out of when flung off the sled after whizzing down the hill. At least if you are over 40 and not as agile as the younger crowd (meaning it's hard to pull my fat self out of deep snowbanks :o) ). Sigh. I'm thankful there were no pictures of *that* (heh heh). Anyway, it snowed all day, getting deeper and deeper. In the slideshows, notice what the ground was like around the van when we first got there compared to later. The icicles were amazing....the kids decided to have fun with them, so they started breaking them off the eaves of one of the other cabins, and sticking them straight up in the snowbank underneath to look like dragons teeth. They also had fun messing around on the snow covered playground. There are some pics in the slideshow of John and Tab. having fun on the merry-go-round and the monkey bars.

Christmas Eve, a group of us went to the Chr. Eve service at the Baptist Church a couple blocks away from the camp, where Trent Means (attended our church here in Santa Clarita for several years before moving) has been pastor for about 5 or so years. It was fun to see him and his wife, and their girls and newer baby. I forgot my camera, so didn't get pics of them...boo hoo. It was a fairly nice service, being in the middle of the snowstorm and all, and there weren't a whole lot of people.

We went back to the camp and had Christmas Eve dinner...lasagna that James and Paula had brought from one of their restaurants in Oregon (they are in the pizza business)....and then John's other brother, Mark, did his hilarious "turkey rancher" monologue. A retelling of the Christmas story from the perspective of the "turkey rancher" whose field adjoined the grazing sheep & shepherds to whom the angels appeared. Blogger is having issues with video clips, so I'll post the clip later. Then we had ice-cream snowballs with candles for Jesus' birthday....we ate while we played a rousing game of round-robin Bunco (a dice game). Our finishing scores determined our number in the gift exchange after the Bunco game. Amazing but true, Paula brought enough little gifties for everyone, and, of course in true hooligan style, stealing was the name of the game. Ben was definitely the most excited with what he got. As he opened the bingo game complete with spinning cage and number balls, he loudly exclaimed in his own utterly genuine way "I'm SO happy!! I've always wanted a Bingo game!!!!!". Needless to say, after such an appreciative exclamation, no one dared steal his Bingo game (frankly, I don't think anyone really wanted it....). He was happy as a clam, and spent the next hour up on the bunkroom floor carefully unsnapping all the little pieces, and playing Bingo with himself. Yep, thats my hooligan!

We were awakened by Kendra around 6am Christmas morning. ....whispered...."Mom!! Dad!!....what is that noise???" I gradually woke up and said "What noise.....I don't hear any....**BANG**......*bangbangbangbang*......*WHUMP!!*.....oh...that noise???....I don't know?" It literally sounded like someone was banging something(?) on the edge of the roof in different places. It was very strange. And unnerving. We couldn't figure it out. Kendra finally went downstairs to look around, and I went back to sleep. When we got up and joined the crew downstairs we discovered that the temperature had risen just enough to make the 2ft deep sheets of snow on the roof start to crack and slide. Every time a slab would crack and shift it made the banging sound. AHA! The window of our upstairs room overlooked one of the lower gable type roofs, and when a slab of snow fell onto it it made the "whump" sound. It was sort of funny......it woke up and freaked out at least half of us. An interesting start to Christmas day to say the least. There is a picture of a falling slab of snow in the slideshow.

For the record, creamed eggs is John's Mom's traditional Christmas breakfast, but there were also cinnamon rolls (yummmm). Most of the other families had done their presents before they came, so us Todds, Carsons, and Newmans sat down and did our gifts together. The rest of Christmas day was spent playing outside, helping in the kitchen, and eating. There was turkey & ham, mashed taters (not as good as the kind Kathy and I make, tho...), green bean casserole, monster rolls that Zach & his wife Rachel made that day, glop (that cottage cheese/jello/marshmallow/pineapple.....stuff), and pie later of course.

I don't know who started drawing on the whiteboard, but there came to be quite the Christmas/eclectic graffiti there. The "neutral gender angel" came about as a result of quite an interesting discussion that ebbed and flowed all weekend. I don't even remember who first brought up the topic of angels, but I do remember John commenting (emphatically) that there *were* female angels mentioned in scripture. Put together an extended family of very opinionated people, plus 3 of them being pastors, and bring up a controversial passage......well, lets just say it was a discussion with unique bunny trails to say the least. And it went around and around most of the time we were there :o). All in good humor. Hence the "neutral gender angel"......wouldn't want any angel discrimination going on....

We ended the day with a rousing game of balderdash, followed by getting as much sweeping/cleaning as possible done so that John's brothers and families could leave early the next morning. to be cont....

HCTTGWN part 2!!! (scroll down for part 1)

2009-01-05T23:28:00.000-08:00

We made it to Camp Pinewood! John's Mom and Dad (The Newmans senior) were already there with a fire started, and 2 more Newman families were expected later that evening, assuming they didn't get stuck in a snowdrift between Western OR and Idaho (they made it). John's sister and her husband literally could not figure a way to get out of their area (can't remember if they were in OR or N. CA), so weren't able to make it, but the other 2 clans put on the snow tires, somehow found open roads (there were lots of closed passes in the Cascades), and managed to get there. Kathy and I did a grocery store run for milk and breakfast food, and had the interesting experience of pushing a shopping cart through the snow. Which got us to wondering what people in Alaska do in the winter with shopping carts??? Do they even use them??? It was pretty funny, actually, watching Kathy plowing through the snowy parking lot. Ok, I *did* help pull the thing when I wasn't taking a picture of her. So, everyone arrived eventually. There were 21 of us. John's Mom and Dad (Jim and Ramona), John's brother Mark and his wife Shauna, and kids (big kids) Abe (goes to Corban College in OR), and Anna (12th grade), John's brother James and his wife Paula, their son Zach & his wife and baby (argh!......brain freeze on their names!!), and their other son Reuben. John & my sister Kathy & kids (Alex 16, Tabitha 13), and last but not least US, and my mom and dad (Don & Jan Carson). My folks have been good friends of the Newmans-senior for many years, and they're all a bunch of crazies like us hooligans, so it made for good (in the quirky/slightly demented sense) fellowship.

Hooligans Caravan to the Great White North! (part 1)

2009-01-03T14:55:00.000-08:00

And off we went..... yes, we did manage to get it all packed, find the lost radios, and get ourselves out the door by 7am on Mon. the 22 of Dec. These trips are always an adventure, between icy toilet seats in remote rest stops, and the variability of road conditions in December. Well, it was all fun, and even with all the storms and snow up in the NW quadrant of the country, we had mostly good roads the whole way. We left in drizzly weather, and added Kathy and John to the Caravan up in Rosamond.

we were intrigued by this tree/bush thing at the gas station there, so felt compelled to photograph it.

a rainbow was a nice way to start the trip !

Luning?

I *think* this is our "favorite" rest stop south of Bishop....Luning, CA: middle of nowhere, always cold howling wind in December. We've unanimously voted it the coldest bathroom stop on the trip bar none. There is always a line of sorts (why?????this is the middle of *nowhere*!), and we always seem to end up having to stop here. Will we hooligans never learn to not drink anything a half hour before luning? So we obligatorily froze our tushies off........ again.

We stopped for lunch at the McDs in Bishop, and were greeted by this LARGE token of holiday spirit. The reindeer went up and down...it was sort of cute, and sort of hideous at the same time. Ben was intrigued by the fish......

tho, why McDs had a fish is beyond me..... anyway, the rest of the day was spent traipsing through the Nevada wilderness....Hawthorne, Fallon.....all the way up to Winnemucca. Pretty bleak landscape. There was some roadside snow pretty much the whole way, but not on the road. Winemucca was coooold, and the parking lot of the motel was very icy and snowy. It snowed a bit overnight, so Mark had to scrape the windshield for the first time. This is actually my Dad's car he's scraping...

Here we all are ready to take off for Oregon & Idaho. Kathy took this pic.

Thats John, Cami, Tabitha, Alex, Mark, Ben, Me, Kendra......

We fairly soon...meaning by the time we were into the SE corner of Oregon.....ran into snowy yet drivable (they use sand/gravel) roads sort of like this:

and they were like this for miles..........pretty much all the way through the corner of OR. Coming into Idaho, the terrain drops pretty sharply into the wide river valley where Boise is. There was snow everywhere, gradually getting deeper, but the roads were clearer than OR. By the way that is Mom and Dad C's car up there in front of us. Kathy and John were ahead of them. Our communication system this trip was a bit flawed. We all have 2 way radios (of rather dubious quality we've discovered....), so theoretically, as long as we are all tuned to the same channel, things should work fine, right??? Well, originally (say 6 or so years ago), *we* had 2 radios, Mom and Dad had 2 radios...etc. This time around, I could only find 1 of our original radios, Kathy and John only had 1, and Mom and Dad had their 2. We quickly discovered that *my* radio was the only one that could communicate with Kathy's radio. Fortunately Mom and Dad had 2 radios, so I kept one of them, and whenever Mom needed to say something to Kathy and John, I had to relay the message on the other radio. Very efficient. Oh well, it worked. Topics of radio conversation, on the most essential level, generally focused on bathroom stops, gas stops, and food stops. But digressions occur....."Dad, you can turn your blinker off now...", "Oh look there's that giant *thing* in the middle of the desert again!", "Kathy, how cold is it now? (they had an outside temp. guage in their car)", (Kathy to Kayleen)"Could you tell Dad that it's illegal to pass on a double yellow line????!!!....AAAAAHHHHH!!"......and the like. Thus, we made it through wet, dirty,

occasionally snowy

roads to McCall in good form. We snuck in between storms, and it was beginning to snow lightly when we arrived.

December Continued.......

2009-01-02T21:48:00.000-08:00

Well, dear readers, there is a bit of catch up work to be done here. December continued with various activities ending as we wound down to Christmas. Cami did great in her violin recital. Here's a pic of Cami with her teacher, Miss Agnes. She (Agnes) is an amazing, patient teacher. She also was in the orchestra at Grace Community Church's Christmas musical, which Kendra, Cami, and I went to this year, so that was fun.

Speaking of the Hooligan sisters, they managed to suffer through their remaining schoolwork/projects/papers, etc. before Christmas vacation. Ben survived as well....here he is being his usual roll-on-the-floor hooligan self.

I wasn't entirely sure I would manage to get everything done and packed for our every-3-year trip to Idaho, but it got done. And off we went.....

Counting down to Christmas: Dec week 1

2008-12-04T23:39:00.000-08:00

Life is back in full swing after Thanksgiving! The mega-potato leftovers were rapidly consumed by the hooligan potato vultures. I (personally) took responsability for consuming the leftover green bean casserole, being the only one who truly appreciates onions in my family. Wait, take that back....Kendra did try a bite and liked it. Hmmm......does this mean I'll have to *share * my leftovers in the future?? Perish the thought!!

Enough about food. Monday night was the "wear your costume-costume check" night for Music Man Rehearsal. Oh. My. Goodness. All the darling little girls in their frilly dresses, and the boys in their knickers and suspenders. Especially the boys.......is this not too cute??

I'm telling you, I just wanted to go around pinching all their (cuuute widdle) cheeks . This is Ben and Bryan Johnson looking dapper. Actually, its a little surreal seeing all the boys looking so.....nice! Kind of unnatural. So, you want to see unnatural......get a look at *this* picture!

Now in the pic above this one, H3 looks kind of cool. We took this one before we went out the door, and everytime I look at it, the sheer geekiness of it overwhelms me! The slicked hair....the bulging eyes....the plastic smile.....its....its....unnatural, thats what it is. But cute (awww).

Speaking of unnatural, in this era of tight t-shirts and low slung blue jeans (not on my girls, but you know what I mean...), it was a femininity-fest.......behold!

I can't remember the name of the girl on the far left, but then we have Sarah J., Kendra, Micayla J, and Cami. Aren't they beautiful? I think so. Thus, as you can see, Music Man marches on...performances are end of Jan. The kids are having a blast.

Here's a bit more normal picture of Ben. He's wearing his fuzzy warm ultra cool Old Navy fleece that I got on Black Friday for a steal of a deal (actually I got 2 they were such a good deal!).

I think this was Tues morning. Ben is generally cold in the morning, so he was glad to be wearing it. Here he is indulging in his new obsession - "Scratch," on the computer.

Scratch is an easy programming language (sorta like LOGO, only more updated looking) that the good folks at MIT recently created, and Ben is having a great time working his way through the tutorial. You can find it here: http://scratch.mit.edu/ , and the tutorial he is using is here:
http://learnscratch.org/ . I've been coerced into putting it on his schoolwork list, due to its educational value, but then, I'm occasionally a pushover. He loves having things on his list like this that he "has" to do (yeah right)....as in "But Moooom, I can't do math right now, I have to do Scratch!"

Tuesday night Mark and I attended his annual office party/gift exchange. It was a nice time to get away without kids, chat with adults, and eat a good meal. We scored in the gift exchange by coming home with the new Narnia movie! Only 1 person tried to steal it from us, but I did an end run move, and "stole" Mark's gift so he could steal the movie back. Heh heh (all's fair in love and war). Also, our name was picked from the hat to take home one of the centerpieces. Ain't it pretty?

Last but not least, today I started making my favorite ultra-easy holiday carmel/turtle thingies. Yuuummmm. These are totally addictive. Bewaaaaaare.

and SO easy: 3 ingredients......

For this year's batch, I picked up the holiday pretzels at Sams club, but regular mini sized pretzels are what I usually use. The bag of pecans looks like it says " I can halves". I keep doing a double take every time I look at this picture. Anyway, all you do is lay a bunch of pretzels out on a foil lined sheet. Place a yummy rolo on top of each one. Pop into a just warm oven for about 5 minutes until the rolos are glistening and gooey looking. Take the sheet out and squish each rolo down with a pecan half. Put the sheet of pretzel/rolo/pecan things in the fridge until the chocolate hardens up. Then try not to eat all of them at one sitting. By the way, the one candy in the first picture that has another pretzel on it instead of a pecan is Ben's. He begged me to make one without nuts for him. And then never ate it. Phooey on him.

Give Thanks! (and other miscellaneous hooliganry)

2008-11-28T23:17:00.000-08:00

Well well (deep subject), the year is rapidly winding down. The weekend of fire and wind gave way to eerie calm, and more recently, rain....yay! The Friday after the fire the girls and I trekked down to Yucaipa, CA (way east, 2-3 hr drive) to enjoy a rare visit with some much loved friends and former neighbors, the Price's. Hooligans 1 and 2 were invited to Paige's 16th birthday "soiree", so we left H3 with Dad and enjoyed a night of (mostly) female carousing. I say "mostly" because there *are* 3 boys in the Price family, although they were vastly outnumbered by the 27-odd teenage girls who came to party and spent the night. The theme was all things French, so we ate crepes and assorted other frenchified snacks, and the girls jabbered enlessly about girl stuff and played games. And watched "Waaaaaalllllllleeeeee" until an ungodly late hour. Bless my dear friend Missy's heart....she reserved a bed for me (it was literally wall to wall girls), so I confess I didn't see the end of the movie. In spite of the general chaos that reigned, however, it was nice to be able to spend time with her and catch up on "stuff". Good friends are a gift from God, there is no doubt about it. Interestingly, on the way to Yucaipa, we went right by the huge mobile home park that was totally devastated in the fire. It's hard to understand it till you see it in person, but it was so sad. I was prompted to pray, as I drove, for the hundreds of people that lost their homes there. I was reminded that we ought never to hold on to things too tightly, lest we wake up without them one day.

Thus we coasted on into Thanksgiving week. A strange week. Strange because most of the usual daily committments were on hiatus. Unfortunately for me, Hooligan Mom, I have become far too much a creature of habit. My brain knows the pattern of my busy days, and when the pattern gets disrupted, my brain freezes. Which is why, at 4:35 on Monday afternoon Cami came shrieking down the stairs....something about a violin lesson we were already late to. Sigh......of course I wasn't thinking about it because we normally have PE on Mon. afternoons. So my brain was totally out of gear. We made it to the lesson. Late. But we made it. Grrrr.

The storm came crashing in on Tuesday night, and it rained most of Wednesday. I DID remember Ben's piano lesson (HA!), which was a good thing because he needs all of them he can get, judging by the piano events calendar for the spring, which Mrs. Peterson had neatly typed up so all us parents could collectively freak out before January. Yikes. I had almost breathed a sigh of relief looking at it, until I realized that there was a *back side* that I had not yet read. So dear hooligan 3, Lord willing and the Crick don't rise, has 5 major judged events/competitions, and 3 minor ones (fun recitals). Which makes 8. Now, If *I* had had to do this growing up, I would have been put in a padded cell long ago, but since H3 was *born* needing a padded cell, such events are actually moments of amazing sanity for him.

We made a pretense of getting some school done on Monday and Tuesday, but by Wed afternoon, school was tanking rapidly in the Hooligan house. We attended the lovely Thanksgiving Eve service at church Wed night, while the rain began to ease off a bit. I fully intended to come home and do "speed pumpkin pie", but by the time we got home, I was tired enough to talk myself into getting up early next morning to do it (uh huh....).

*****DON'T PANIC, PICTURES WILL BE APPEARING SOON*********

Thanksgiving morning the sun was out, and I slept in (yep, you guessed it......so much for early pumpkin pie making). In my defense, let me say that I had all my food "stuff" all packed and mostly ready to go in advance, so I'm not really as much of a procrastinator as I routinely appear (hmm.....how long has it been since I updated the blog???). Anyway, we were generally lazy hooligans (and darn thankful to be, at that!), and were out the door to my sister's house up in Rosamond by Edward's Air Force Base by 10 or so. I planned to have her take a family pic for us, so I *tried* to make sure everyone was wearing or brought with them something presentable and semi color coordinated. She has a good camera (as opposed to my 4mp 3x point and shoot). Yes, I have camera envy. Anyway, we made it up there. Normally, it is VERY windy up there, and very dry (desert you know), but because of the recent rain, their front yard looked like this when we drove up....

Awww...it was so pretty! That's what *I* was thinking anyway. H-Dad's first comment was "maybe I'll get the rake out and rake leaves for them this afternoon....". Typical. I made a mental note to tell him to leave the leaves alone. Usually the wind would have blown them away.
In we went, Ben immediately assuming his favorite spot:

In front of the wii of course!

Faithful hound Strider was there to welcome us........talented, too! Look how he balances that little tiny blue cup on his head! World's sweetest doggie, bar none.

and we checked out all the yummy snacky food.......

and read millions of Black Friday ads........

The older hooligans disappeared into the family room where Alex and Tabitha (the hooligan cousins) were holed up watching "The Office" season 1. I discovered this when I began hearing laughter emanating from that direction, and peeked in to see what was going on. There they all were, plus Grandpa. Not being remotely interested in watching The Office, I left them alone. Turkey was already in the oven. Time to start peeling potatoes. Heh heh. The hooligan family definitely has (at least) one weakness when it comes to holiday cooking. The humble mashed potato. The unwritten rules state that

1. you can never make too great a quantity
2. the more buttery and garlicky they are, the better
and
3. Whoever gets the most leftovers wins.

Normally, we hooligans adhere to rule #1 with at least a modicum of restraint. THIS year, however, the potato gremlin got loose, and things got a *teensy bit* out of hand (hee hee).

Here are Kendra and Grandma peeling away.....keep in mind, my mom brought no less than 4 5lb bags of potatoes, and they weren't keeping very good track of how many they were peeling.

It wasn't until they were all peeled, and we began cutting them up and putting them in the (huge, enormous) stock pot, that we began to understand just we were in for.....

This is what 15 lbs of potatoes looks like..... at this point it began to get somewhat humorous. We all stared at the pot a bit stupefied. We began speculating about what Unwritten Rule #3 might actually look like. More later on the potato saga......

Finally, the bird was hoisted out of the oven with all the yummy stuffing flowing out from the nether regions....

Grandma unveiled her traditional orange-carrot jello, and......wonder of wonders, she left out the carrots this year and put in mandarin oranges instead. Truly a cause for thanksgiving!! But she thought the jello looked too lonely there on the big empty plate, so she *had* to decorate it..........

What the....??? Yes, those are pea pods and baby carrots....(chills going up spine, hair standing on end).....yikes! It was .....um......decorative? Yeah, thats it.....sort of Weight Watcher's Cookbook circa 1965-ish type decorative. But the jello was good, and all the hooligan kids were quite vocal in their thanks to Grandma for not putting carrots in the jello this year. Fortunately Grandma has a good sense of humor.

Thus the meal was consumed. Everyone eating all the potatoes they could hold (aren't they beautiful??)

We all went around, as we knew we ought, and said what we were thankful for this year. I think we were all thankful to just be together as a family. God has been very good to all of us. Hooligan tendencies and all. As we all left the table, my bil John (hooligan extraordinaire, marathoner, rock climber) commented off-handedly that seeing we had indulged in *one* of the 7 deadly sins, we could now go and enjoy another...heh heh! That would be *cough* gl****ny and sl**h. So then, of course, not to let an intellectual opportunity get away, we had to enumerate all the 7 deadly sins (google helped a little, I think), and my mother the grammarian even thought up a pneumonic/neumonic/numonic.....how does one spell that word anyway??.... to remember them. It was pathetically geeky. While all this was going on, cleanup was happening, and leftovers being portioned out. And then we saw it......

Oh the hideousness of it!!! It's....it's.....the Leaning Tower of Potatoes!! This is truly obscene, folks. One might also ponder the amount of Cool Whip that is evidently consumed in this house. But I digress..... lets just say we almost had collective incontinence we laughed so hard. This, folks, is what 10-odd lbs of leftover potatoes looks like. I'm sure H1 (that would be Kendra, the mashed potato queen) was swooning with visions of leftover mashed potatoes.

Anyway, the day continued with birthday festivities for my nephew Alex who was actually born on Thanksgiving Day. Here he is looking non-plussed with his 16 glowing candles....

"Hmm....maybe I should go blow those out someday...."

His present from Grandma was most unique. He got 2 (yes 2) cards, which he was obliged to open first. Ahem: Card #1......

Then he opened card #2.....

Ooooooh! I'm starting to see a trend! what could this mean????

Then he opened the "Piece de Resistance".........

The perfect gift for the 16yr old male.......a monkey toilet brush!!! Awwwww.....ain't it just the cutest thaang????? Hmmm. I'm not sure what to make of that face. Anyway, I'll bet none of his friends got monkey toilet brushes for *their* birthdays!! Go Grandma!!

And to end things off, here's my lovely niece Tabitha (the ballerina)....

and a very nice picture of Mom and Dad Carson.....

and here's Mark's contribution to the 7 deadly sins.....

and mine......(I'm mixing up Rice Crispy Treats......like we needed more food....)

Wild Weekend!

2008-11-17T00:26:00.000-08:00

Well another busy weekend here at Hooligan C. We'd been looking forward to a brief visit from our good friend Darryl from Nevada who had to be in the area for a work meeting. Mark was to pick him up at Burbank airport at 1:30 Sat. afternoon. Mom and Dad Carson woke us up Sat. morning about 8 on the phone, alerting us to a fire raging in the valley just to the south of us. A fire that had literally shut down ALL the freeways and roads going directly south. Burbank is a happy little drive of only 30 min south on a normal Sat. This obviously was not going to be a normal Saturday. We got up, and I hopped online to get the scoop, and discovered that the only way to get south to Burbank was to take the highway that goes west all the way to the coast, then pick up the freeway that goes back east. AND, this being literally the only route around the fire, EVERYONE was on that highway. So poor Mark left at 9:30, endured stop and go traffic all the way, and got to the airport right on time (egads, 4 hrs!!). A normally 1:00 there and back trip turned into an almost 7 hr marathon! While he was gone, I had to run a few errands, so got some pics of the smoke. The wind was just whipping, and in the space of 10 or 15 min, the smoke went from looking like this:

to looking like this:

and this: Yikes!

Most of the smoke had cleared away by the end of the day, but the fire did creep over the mts. toward our valley, and I'm told that some back fires were lit on our side as well. Whatever the case, both last night and tonight there were lines of flame visible on the mts. after dark. Ben was a bit unnerved watching the flames, but they were far enough away, and the wind died down quite a bit today. All freeways reopened by this morning. Anyway, we had a nice-but-short visit with Darryl. He (as usual) wined and dined us, and we went mini golfing at a new place that has indoor black lighting. It has an underwater theme, and everything glows. Ben and Mark had checked out this place previously, and Ben was beside himself to go, being a self proclaimed connoisseur of miniature golf!

The hooligan sisters don't quite share their dear brothers enthusiasm for miniature golfing......

......but don't be fooled....they had a great time anyway! I took some pics with regular flash, but I also tried some with no flash so I could capture the "coolness" of the black lighting. It worked pretty well, but it was hard to get a picture that wasn't blurry. Oh well.

THE FLOOR (OOH AAH)

DARRYL AND MARK

Cool, huh?

So we had a fun time golfing, and today he took us to Hometown Buffet for lunch, which is a special treat for the kids because it is totally out of our normal price range for eating out. They love going there! Darryl left at about 3:30 this afternoon. The couple that run the company D works for picked him up. He'll have meetings for a couple days, then fly home. Back to normal life tomorrow.

The Busy-ness of Life!

2008-11-16T23:17:00.000-08:00

So, since H3's auspicious 12th birthday the Hooli-blog has certainly been languishing. In the interest of perseverance, however, lets get things a little more up to date. Life continues at breakneck speed. Homeschooling all the different sized hooligans continues, interrupted by numerous projects, activities and events.

Ben has been mucking about with stop motion animation this fall, so he's had fun making little movies (I use the term VERY loosely!!) with his lego creations.

PE coop with our homeschool group is in full swing. Ben has enjoyed basketball and flag football so far this fall. Here's a pic of H3 lounging in the beautiful warm weather, and another of all the 4th-6th graders that are in the PE coop. Ben is way in the back next to the tree, and has his eyes closed.......typical boy! He has a great time every week with his friends.

My birthday slid on in there as well. We didn't have any real parties or anything, but Mom and Dad took me to Baja and gave me a nice card. My sweet son said Happy Birthday to me first on the actual day, gave me a big hug (awwww!), then just sat down at the piano and played this for me .....

If you've watched enough Veggie Tales you'll know the song right off. For all the uninitiated, here are the lyrics:

I thank God for this day,
For the sun in the sky,
For my mom and my dad,
For my piece of apple pie!

For our home on the ground,
For His love that's all around,
That's why I say thanks every day!

Because a thankful heart is a happy heart!
I'm glad for what I have,
Thats an easy way to start!

For the love that He shares,
'Cause He listens to my prayers,
That's why I say thanks every day!

.....Now this certainly isn't the best improvisation he's ever done at the piano, but It was very sweet and spontaneous! I tried to film it the first time he did it, but couldn't sneak in there fast enough. He was kind and played it again for me so I could get the clip :o).

Roaches to roses......life in a nutshell!

He also got me a card ("I picked it out myself, with Dad!") that was pretty and flowery. The hooligan sisters were teasing him about the frilly card, but I told them to zip it! After I opened it, and gave appropriate exclamations of appreciation, I said "I'll put it up here so I can look at it..." and set it up on the top of the bookshelf in the entryway. Just as I set it down and stepped away, I noticed what was sitting next to it (hee hee). It was definitely a "yep, thats my life in a nutshell" moment. Roaches to roses and everything in between right here at Hooligan Central! Gave me a good chuckle.

The Birthday Maniac...H3 turns 12

2008-10-10T20:55:00.000-07:00

Sniff!!...my baby is 12!! AAAAAAAAAAhhhhhhh!!! Say it isn't so!! I've told him over and over that he's not allowed to grow up, but does he listen?? Well, just look at that face, and there's your answer. This kid liiiiiiiiiiiiives for birthdays. In blatant disregard of the emotional well being of his poor mother, I might add. Humph! And so......a tribute to Ben, in honor of his birthday.

***********

All my hooligans, of course, have a special place in my heart, but this particular one just has a special uniqueness. Maybe its a little of that mother-son thing, maybe its because he's my youngest, but this wacky, be-bopping, humming, dancing, drumming,intense, stubborn, other-worldly creature never ceases to amaze, infuriate, frustrate, and delight me. He has definitely taught me to more genuinely appreciate the wide world of sound. He is a true audiophile (don't even know it thats a word)..... a lover of sounds of all kinds. Which drives him to do things like...... this for example.....

Ok, what exactly is he doing here?? Well, this is a new-fangled, high tech street crossing button. It makes a digital sounding click when you press the arrow (maybe for blind people?). He was obviously fascinated with the sound.....but if you'll notice, he's not content with just appreciating the new clicky sound, he has to see what it sounds like from the inside of the pole. So there he is, ear pressed to the pole, mesmerized.......click.......click......click......click.......click......
He's taught me to more fully appreciate the percussive possibilities of all natural and manmade surfaces. The world is his drumpad :o). He discovered buttons....the kind you push....early in life. And, yeah, he knows how to push *those* kind of buttons too. Anyway, his many faults aside, I love watching the intense, uninhibited curiosity that drives him to listen to poles, yell in marble walled office lobbies to hear the echos, jump up and down in elevators as they ascend and descend to see if he feels lighter or heavier, or try out his favorite Hollywood voice tricks in the middle of the mall (to the embarrassment of the hooligan sisters...heh heh). What can I say...I love my goofy hooligan. Happy Birthday Ben!

************

Let the Day Begin!!

So H3 began his day by messing around with the photo booth app on the i-mac, a program tailor-made for creative hooligans. Not only can you instantly take your own picture with the built in camera, but you can squish, twist, tweak, zoom, distort......whatever! Ben decided that he wanted a picture of his teeth. Nice teeth Ben.

I decided to surprise Ben with a trip on the Metrolink down to Mark's office. He's been begging to do this for awile, so I decided it would be a fun birthday thing to do. Mark's office building has a McD's on the ground floor, and Ben is virtually the only member of this family that loves McD's. And, being the youngest he is usually outvoted when it comes to such decisions. Anyhoo, he had brief reservations about the train because of the recent ill-fated Metrolink crash, but I put the statistics in perspective for him, we sat in the end train car, and all was well.

Happy H3 on the train!

Ok, here's a slideshow of the rest of the day. As you can see, we ate lunch at McDonalds, then bopped down the street to the Americana, a ritzy shopping area directly across from the Glendale Galleria. The fountain was pretty impressive, and there was actually a fountain show which was very cool. I, of course, was impressed most of all by the 3 story Barnes and Noble, and was mildly disappointed that I couldn't just stay there and wander for the rest of the afternoon....but we had to be on the 2pm train back home, so there you go. All in all, we did a lot of walking....Ben and I wandered down the street before lunch to kill time, then we walked around a bunch after lunch. I was zonked by the time we got home around 3. We let Ben open his presents from us after dinner. Usually we have a party with Grandma and Grandpa and John, Kathy and all, but schedules are really wacky right now, so that may get put off till ??? We'll see. Lets just say H3 isn't as patient as H1 when it comes to birthdays, so I decided we'll just do it in stages. Thus endeth the day.

Final Score: Leaky Pipes 2, Plumber 0

2008-10-03T15:34:00.000-07:00

Yet another blip in the intermittently continuing saga of "Plumbing Annoyances in the Hooligan Household". This particular happy ceiling hole was one that was created a few months ago in order to fix a small slowly dripping leak. While waiting for the apt. company to send the plumbers back to actually fix the leak, the leak sealed itself with rust........which was a good thing, because the plumbers failed to return at all, at which point we temporarily forgot about it-- hooligans by nature being a bit ADD in the home-repair department and all. Well, when it began dripping again, we stuck a bucket underneath it and continued to ignore it.......

Enter pipe #2.......

Notice both places where there are clamps, not to mention the not-less-than 4 rust craters in a 2ft stretch of pipe, where there are tiny leaks that rust over before they can drip! This one began leaking a few days ago in the kitchen, but because there wasn't already a convenient hole in the ceiling, the water pooled above the front of the cabinets, and began to drip down the front of the cupboard. BTW, this exact scenario had already presented itself at another time in the past, at which time I recommended that they install hinged doors in our ceiling.....they didn't listen. Well, the nice PAC apt. plumber came out yesterday morning, visibly relieved that I was so calm about my holes and drips, having had such a long intimate relationship with them. He evidently has had to deal with outraged tenants who have major psychological issues about leaks. I told him that perspective is a wonderful thing.....when you've had your entire dining room flooded overnight by a burst pipe, and dealt with waterfalls raining from your 2yo's ceiling, a couple slow drips are, by comparison, not worthy of too much emotional stress. God, after all, uses such minor annoyances to teach us patience. But I digress. Mr. nice plumber was here a good 2 or more hours, cutting holes, clamping leaks etc.. Well, by bedtime last night, BOTH (yes both!) pipes were dripping yet again. ???? leaving me scratching my head as to what he actually *did* while he was here? So I guess Monday I'll start this whole sad process over again, and see if the score improves. Mr. Nice Plumber assured me he would recommend to the apt. company that they have him totally replace this whole (rust infected) stretch of pipe. to be cont.....

Homeschooling (hooligan style....cough!) at its finest.....

2008-10-03T00:25:00.000-07:00

In honor of being 7 weeks or so into the new schoolyear, let us pause (shaaaall we?) to appreciate a brief (yet typical) moment in the day of the (poor, tortured, overworked...) young hooligans. Here they are -- scrubbed, shining faces......engrossed in the acquisition of knowlege.....purposeful, serious students....... (heh heh).

Here we have young master hooligan, diligently doing his penmanship. Or...or...at least diligently sitting in a chair (actually an amazing thing, come to think of it!). Oh, and look! The finesse with which he *drinks* his applesauce (especially notice the elegant crook of the finger..). See how carefully he has nibbled away the inside of his toast, and ever so carefully nested the 2 crusts together. You'd think this child hadn't eaten breakfast a mere half hour ago! He is DEF-initely on track to finish that penmanship in a record 2 hours (assuming more personally pressing issues don't make it take longer)!

*****************

And then we find H2, bless her heart, just all dressed, groomed, and rarin to go!! To her credit, that really is Algebra on the screen. And for all the evil minds working overtime out there, poor H2 despises Evil Mom Lady's camera and is merely hiding from it. OK, so we're working on being up and dressed (you know--real clothes?) by 8 am. One of us is anyway (and its currently NOT H2). Well, we're 50% there anyway. The ever present piggy is ........well......ever presently *helping* with the math. We all know (don't we???) that holding guinea pigs and listening to music while doing Algebra significantly increases retention? What? You didn't know that? Well, you've learned something new here at Hooligan Central! I'm sure all your eager Algebra students will want to rush right out and get a guinea pig to help them with THEIR math.

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Whew!! OK!! Finally! ONE hooligan actually wearing CLOTHES (yesssss!!!), and actually holding a pencil (yesss!!) and writing something down! You guessed it - Hooligan #3, as always, eschewing desks (nasty inventions), yet managing a minimum level of productivity.

Fair Fun!

2008-09-27T00:34:00.000-07:00

We decided to take advantage of free school group fair day this year at the LA county fair. I was beginning to feel a bit "out of the loop", as it were, having lived lo' this many years in S. CA and having *never* ventured to the fair ??? How could this be? We weren't entirely sure what we would encounter, except that we knew that there would be a lot of overpriced food. I invited my mom and dad along, since we would be going on my dad's birthday. Actually, I didn't realize this fact until after I had invited them.....I remember birthdays really well, can't you tell? Well, as the slide show will attest, we had a great time. And there was a lot of overpriced food which we didn't eat (yay for coolers). We just had to walk around and smell it all day. What can I say. We're all cheapskates. But it was a ton of fun! Here are some of the things we each enjoyed:

Grandma: not totally sure, but she had fun wandering around the shopping areas

Grandpa: sledding with Ben on his seventy-somethingth birthday. See?, you don't grow out of hooligan tendencies! (yes real snow, real hill, inside), and probably the horse race.

Cami: Shopping (mostly window variety), and seeing the guinea pigs, lambs, and bunnies.

Kendra: ditto the guineas, lambs, and bunnies

Mark: free parking & entrance, not spending $12 each for barbecue :o)

Ben: sledding, giant insects, being the magician's assistant in the magic show!

Me: I liked the horse race, and watching Ben have fun in the magic show

We finally broke down at the end of the day, and (against all of our extremely frugal sensibilities) gave each kid a whopping $5 to spend on either a food item, or a ride. The girls went with food, Ben went on a ride. Typical.

OK, I mentioned that Ben got to assist at the magic show, so here are some pics of him having a great time. The whole show was a recycling pitch (yawn...... it was mid afternoon, we were desperate for anywhere to sit down and relax), but the magician was actually really good. He did some good sleight of hand stuff. Made a lot of largish things disappear. Made a table float. Not too bad. Ben was soooooo thrilled to get picked to help. We all sat with fear and trepidation in the audience watching.........lets just say that Ben feels *uniquely* at home on a stage. One never knows what might transpire. In true hooligan form, he did not disappoint.

Magician: "This table is an antique....do you know what an antique is?"
Ben: "Yup!"
Magician: "It's something really old and worth a lot of money......do you know anyone that's an antique?"
Ben: "Yup --My Grandma!!"
Magician: "Is she here with you?"
Ben: "Yup, right back there!"

....and he was duly rewarded with uproarious laughter from the crowd, as we all rolled our eyes and shook our heads thinking "yeah, we knew it was coming...". Now, in Ben's defense, he understood "worth a lot of money" to mean "of genuine value", NOT "rolling in dough that I plan to inherit someday". The crowd got the real joke, Ben was gratified to get a laugh, and he thought he'd just paid his grandma a semi-teasing compliment (teasing about the age, compliment about her value). It was funny anyway.

...The Am-a-zing Ben!!...(note the lovely glasses!)

Getting ready to levitate the table....

and uuuuuuup it goes!!

Fall is in the air.....

2008-09-09T09:16:00.000-07:00

A Happy Pumpkin!

Grandma asked Kendra and Cami to test drive the pumpkin craft that she's putting together for the children's area at Magic Mt.'s Fright Fest (my mom has been in charge of this area for a number of years). This is what Cami came up with. I thought they were cute!

Friends and Fun!

2008-09-02T10:51:00.000-07:00

The Whole Gang

Micayla, Ben, Brian, Sarah, Cami, Kendra

We had a fun relaxing (?) day at Magic Mt. with Gregg and Jeanette Johnson & family on Friday. We've been blessed to get to know them over the past years, and the kids always have a good time together. It was a HOT day, but with Sarah J.'s employee discount (she works there) we kept our free refillable soda cup full most of the time, and hit enough water rides to endure it.

Ben and Brian with Batman (I personally think B-man's nose looks funny!)

Inside the Batman ride....Kendra wanted pictures of all the different colors of Batman suits around the park. Being of analytical turn of mind, she noticed the discrepancies, and asked me to photograph them. So notice, please, that in the *first* photo above, Batman is wearing gray, and this one is black.

Ok, here's the last batman one....notice he's blue in the comic strip version.

Da du du duh!!!!.........Introducing.......

2008-08-25T20:28:00.000-07:00

The Bat-hooligan-mobile!!

(Honda Odyssey EX, 2003, ~71,000 miles, ~$11,000, charcoal grey, grey leather interior)

Actually, the girls like to name our cars.......Chloe (Mark's 1st white Honda), Mac (Mark's current white Honda), Blue (the old blue Villager.....can you tell the hooligans like Foster's???)....Kendra and Cami decided to name this one Shiloh (????? mom scratching head over this one)......but my good friend Jeanne Mumper offhandedly called it the Batmobile because of it's color, so thats what I call it.

ANYWAY, in the wake of the ill-fated-vacation-rear-ender-incident (refer to previous posts for that story) that essentially "did in" our blue van (would have cost more to repair than it was worth), we've spent the last month praying and looking for a replacement. As usual, God provides. We were able (with a few intervening hurdles) to get the make, model, mileage, and price we were hoping for. God is so good, and we're thankful for his provision for us. It's roomier than the villager was, with more room in the back, so I'm happy about that. The girls are liking the cd player as the other van only had a tape deck. I think everyone enjoys having their own air vent above each seat, and I'll for sure love the heated seats in mid December when I get up early to drive to Jeanne M.'s house to walk. Granted - this particular feature isn't particularly useful in S. CA in Aug., but its time will come!!

Happy Birthday Kendra!

2008-08-25T19:46:00.001-07:00

The Birthday Girl

Well, we *finally* got around to properly celebrating Kendra's 17th birthday. The party was a bit delayed due to my niece Tabitha's camp schedule this summer, but we won't hold it against her :o). Boy, kids get old quick. Seems like every time I turn around they are 4 or 5 years older. Yikes! She's become fairly lovely, and mostly gracious, as evidenced by the fact that noone who has only known her since about age 13 will believe me when I describe her *wild youth* - HA! Whatever the case, we love her to death!

These are a few of my favorite things........

Presents!

Blooregard Q Kazoo!!
(actually it isn't, but Aunt Kathy saw this rubbery creature with a light up ball inside and decided it looked remarkably like "Blue" from Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends)

Cheeeeeeeeeese!!

The newest in the "Myst" series !

Getting all 17 blown out!

Hooligan Pigs alive and well......

2008-08-25T19:35:00.000-07:00

In spite of being well loved (or thoroughly mauled).

Crega and Padme sharing some food

"sigh....the things I put up with!"

Church Campout

2008-08-05T22:58:00.000-07:00

We had a wonderful time at the church campout. It wasn't especially well attended, but a smallish group of us die-hard campers went up by Santa Barbara for the weekend. The campground was a bit inland from SB, and HOT! We arrived Fri. afternoon, and by that night we all had pretty much decided to go to the beach the next day (Sat).

BEACH DAY

This was a good decision! It was MUCH cooler at the beach, and everyone had a great time in the water. I was happy to lounge, as I didn't bring my suit, and the water was a bit cold for my taste. It was nice to wade and watch. A good time was had by all.

Blog catch up

2008-07-24T09:30:00.001-07:00

OK, I'm going to get this "thang" caught up if I die trying!! San Diego was so wonderful and relaxing.....it was hard to come home to EVERYTHING. Homeschool planning, smooshed car, kids activities......and the like. Ben jumped right into Piano Camp at Master's College the Monday after we got home. He had a fun week of learning new music, improvisation, music history, and lots more. I was able to get a video of his end of week performance, so when it gets put on a cd for me, I'll post it here. We also found out when we got home that Mark's dad was still in the hospital. The small stroke (?) that he had in the midst of the Labrynthitis (wacky inner ear virus) was still making it hard for him to get around very well (it mildly affected one side). The doctors also found an aneurysm in his neck, but we still haven't gotten the real scoop on all of that. Mark was planning of going on his usual backpacking trip with Hughes and Stones, but began waffling, considering the car and his dad. We convinced him to go, and the day before they left we found out that his dad was home from the hospital. God is so good, and we are learning that he is always in control, even with aging parents and car accidents. Mark had a few days of good exercise and fellowship with the guys up in the mountains above Mammoth.

BEAUTIFUL CALIFORNIA SIERRAS

So here we are. I'm frantically getting curriculum ordered, and lesson plans done. Mark got back last Sun. evening. Kendra is in Tijuana on a missions trip with our church through Caravan Ministries. She left Sunday morning, and we heard that they arrived safely and made good time driving down. They are building shelters/houses, working in an orphanage, and assisting the ministry there, so we're praying that Kendra is learning a lot this week, and growing spiritually. Cami and Ben began their 2 week Broadway Review with Escape, so they are busy every evening singing and dancing, having fun, and getting good exercise. We'll be going camping this weekend near Santa Barbara with a group from church, so I'm trying to wrap my brain around getting ready for that as well. Busy busy summer! Maybe next week we can start seriously looking for a new-used van. Mark has been taking the train every day, which, although do-able, isn't the most convenient option. We're continuing to trust God with each day that he brings, trying not to sweat the small stuff, and just keeping moving forward (if you can say it that way).

Beach Day, Thursday July 10

2008-07-24T07:51:00.000-07:00

LA JOLLA COVE

We spent Thursday hitting the beaches! First was La Jolla Cove, a marine preserve where the water is really clear for snorkling, and there are lots of Geribaldi fish and other misc. sea creatures. The weather cooperated yet again, giving us a beautiful sunny day. In true hooligan fashion we accidentally left the masks and snorkles at home in the hurried transition from big car to little car, so everyone swapped Kendra's swim goggles around. As you'll see, there were LOTS of snorklers there. One lady was feeding peas to the fish, so there were plenty of them around to see. What a beautiful spot! After swimming for quite awhile, we ate lunch on the immaculate lawn of the Bridge Club (ooh la la), hoping there weren't any Bridge police around to chase us off, then poked around some of the rocky areas just south of the cove.

CORONADO BEACH

Around 3 we left La Jolla and went back south to San Diego and over the bridge to Coronado Island. We drove by the famous "Hotel Del", but went a little further south to access the beach. I would have liked Coronado Beach better if there hadn't been so much seaweed. It is everywhere! On the plus side, however, the sand was beautiful (like walking on flour, with little sparkles in it...interesting), and the water was oh-so-warm. This is where the kids really missed having the boogie boards. Oh well....couldn't be helped. Ben is usually a little cautious about venturing out "too too" far, but the warm water turned him into an animal. He had a great time going way out & body surfing (or trying to). The girls swam some, but were a bit grossed out by all the seaweed in the water. They spent more time playing in the sand (yes, even teenagers play in the sand......at least hooligan ones do :o) ). Mark built some strange layered sand/seaweed structure. When Ben finally had enough swimming he tried sliding down the stair railing, which was interesting to watch because you just can't get a good slide with wet drawers. I gave him an "A" for effort, though. Also, the famous hooligan-scavenging instinct kicked in, and he found a nice sand mold to play with, in the garbage can on the beach. Score!!

San Diego Zoo, Wednesday July 9

2008-07-22T08:57:00.000-07:00

Wednesday proved to be mostly overcast and cloudy......perfect for a day of walking around the zoo. And riding around the zoo. And zooming over the zoo. The family ticket package we were able to get included the tram and the sky bucket thingies, so we got to take a break from walking occasionally! We spent the whole morning working our way up the "left side" of the zoo, where all the birds, jungly stuff, & monkeys were. We made it to the top, where we duly noted that the polar bears were sleeping (LOTS of the animals were taking advantage of the cool cloudy weather to take naps....phooey!). Then we took the sky tram back down close to the entrance, in the children's zoo and ate lunch.

After lunch, we browsed the petting zoo, the nursery, the reptile house, and bug house (ewwww), then took the tram around the "right side" of the zoo, where all the fairly biggish animals are.......giraffes, elephants, and the like.

We ended the day by riding the skyway up and back one more time, browsed shops a bit, and headed "home".

Boat Day! Tues July 8

2008-07-21T23:14:00.000-07:00

We spent Tuesday down at the harbor exploring ships! We hit the Maritime museum first, crawling all over the "Surprise", the "Star of India", the Russian submarine, and a couple others.

Next we walked down the water front to the Midway, an aircraft carrier turned museum. WOW, what a huge ship! It was fascinating (and exhausting!) meandering all over, up and down ladder like staircases, following the trail of the audio tour. We spent a LONG time here, but it was very cool.

Here is slideshow #1:

We took a separate little (half hour) tour that went up the tower, where the traffic control/bridge is. It feels like you are waaaaaayyyy up high up there. Ben got to sit in the "Boss" chair......thought that was pretty cool. Boy were we tired after schlepping all over this ship. Anyway, here is slideshow #2:

We bopped back to Pio Pico campground and ended up the day with a round of miniature golf, one of Ben's favorite things to do.

Monday July 7 - San Diego here we come!

2008-07-21T22:29:00.000-07:00

Well we ended up going with "Plan B" for vacation. With Mark's dad in the hospital, it just wasn't the right time to visit Nana and Papa, so we went with the contingency plan and headed down to San Diego. Mark's mom and dad are members of Thousand Trails, so since they graciously have "shirtailed" us as associate members we are able to use the campgrounds as well. We were able to rent an on-site trailer down at the Pio Pico TT campground for really cheap (yay!....better than motel 6!!). It was about 40 miles west of SD, so it was a fairly short hop straight into downtown. We had a wonderful week sightseeing and relaxing a bit. The weather was beautiful, and it was just a blessing to get away. The week started off with a bang, however......literally!

YIKES!

We were just south of LA, and in one of those spots on a crowded freeway where 5 or so lanes funnel down to 2 and unexpectedly stop dead. Mark couldn't stop fast enough, and rear-ended an SUV in front of us. We weren't going fast enough for anyone to get hurt, thank the Lord, but our front end definitely got the worst of it. Fortunately the lady in the SUV was in a gracious frame of mind. Info got swapped and we pulled off at a Vons in a not-so-great part of town to assess damage and decide what to do. Well, to make it short, we u-turned, went home, downsized to the Civic, and off we went again. We had to leave quite a bit behind (the boogie boards just wouldn't fit--boo hoo!), but we were able to cram in the basics + children. The hooligans were a bit cramped back there, which made for a character building ride :o). With the delay, we made it almost to the campground by 6:30 or so, stopped for dinner, and scooted in at about 7.

H1 & H2 & Mom......glad to be out of the car!

We even had enough time after unloading everything at the trailer to go up to the kid lounge and play some air hockey. TT campgrounds have great facilities! Rec rooms, swimming, miniature golf etc.

Fabulous 4th!

2008-07-21T21:49:00.000-07:00

Alas, I didn't get any pictures of the (semi cheesy) parade this year, but we bopped up to Aunt Kathy and Uncle John's house after it was over. We were all slugs and watched too many episodes of "What Not To Wear", and ate too much licorice and brownies. When it got dark the kids went out a did sparklers, and we watched the neighbor's fireworks.

Catching up since Father's Day......

2008-07-01T13:19:00.000-07:00

MONDAY JUNE 16
So, Father's day happened. Mon. morning Ben started 2 weeks of MWF Swimming class with the city Parks & Rec. He's had a great time working on all the different strokes.

WEDNESDAY JUNE 18-FRIDAY JUNE 20

My brother Chris popped down to visit for a few days from Washington, so we crammed as much family time in those days as we could. He watched the kids practice for Joseph (he endured it, even though he's not a great fan of Andrew Lloyd Weber), we all went up to my sister Kathy's for the day on Thurs. and had birthday cake for Cami's birthday, then on Fri. we trekked out to the beach to escape the 110 deg. heat wave (ugh).

CAMI'S BIRTHDAY PARTY

Enjoying some ice-cream at McDonalds

Happy Birthday to ME!!...15 candles

Tabitha & Ben lounging around

Strider the pooch

BEACH FUN

Ben and Uncle Chris worked on a sand castle

& got chased by waves

Kendra body surfed the whole time

Us old fogeys just enjoyed sittin

It was a gorgeous day at Oxnard State Beach. We stayed a few hours, then went downtown for lunch and some shopping. It was nice to be out of the heat for a little while anyway.

Chris left Sat. morning while I was taking Ben to his first tennis lesson, and we were racing up to Quartz hill for Uncle Jay's little memorial service & lunch. I had left a few important items at Kathy's house on Thurs., so after we left Mark's Aunt Joy's house we bopped a little further up the freeway back to her house to retrieve them. Later that evening, the girls had an extra Joseph rehearsal at the dance studio, and we were finally done for the day....yay!!

ITS TIME FOR..........

Here is where the blog falls into a black hole...............from Sun June 22 - Sun June 29. Every night was a rehearsal, with dress rehearsals Wed. and Thurs., and the 1st performance on Fri. morning. I helped backstage every rehearsal, and every show except the one I got to go see on Sun afternoon. Whew!! It was an AMAZING show. I don't have pictures at present, but it was a lot of fun and a lot of work. I was one of the army of parent volunteers working backstage. I was one of the lead chaperones for the 4th - 6th grade group, and I worked 5 of the 6 performances. The kids had it easy.....they only had to do 3 of them! It was a lot of shushing, lining kids up, getting costumes on them, making sure they were lined up for their cues....etc. etc. Like herding cats. Very loud cats. Ben and the girls did a great job, and Ben's costume for the Potipher duet was so cute (I'll have to scrounge a picture somewhere). It was just an exhausting fun time, and the show was incredible!

And that brings us to the end of June. Vacation is coming! We're planning on going to San Diego.........fun times ahead!

APS promotion, and H2 approaching 15!!

2008-06-15T22:17:00.000-07:00

The "Official" schoolyear is over. APS promotion night was Fri. the 13th, and it went perfectly well in spite of it's inauspicious date. The Hooligans dutifully marched across the stage to get their promotion certificates, Kendra was honored with a christian character award for PE (they pick 2 or so kids each quarter that stand out), and I started stressing out in advance thinking about next year when Kendra would actually be graduating. Anyway, now they can buckle down and get their few courses finished that didn't quite get done.

Yesterday was spent making trips to the post office to get Kendra's passport application sent. Yes, trips (plural). It was rather a comedy of errors. First, I forgot that the Newhall Post Office didn't process passports on Saturday. Then I realized I had put down the wrong eye color for Kendra on the form. Then we went all the way to the Valencia post office, where I realized I had used up all my checks (long story), so I had to go all the way home to get a new checkbook and come back. I am well aware of where my children get their "ditzy" genes, thats for sure. But the dirty deed is done.

I took Cami, her friend Ariel, and Kendra "out" that afternoon for Cami's birthday "fling" a week in advance. Poor Hooligan 2's birthday always seems to fall in the middle of ultra busy-ness, so we are left to "wing it". This year on her actual birthday (the 21st) we will be spending the morning/afternoon with Mark's aunt and family in Quartz Hill for his Uncles memorial service. After we get back from that, the girls have an extra "Joseph" rehearsal in the evening. We'll have to reschedule cake-n-present time, but meanwhile the girls had a fun afternoon of lunch and ice skating *this* weekend!

Beautiful hooligan 2 - almost 15!

Tweedledum and Tweedledee

Keeping cool!

FATHER'S DAY!!

Last but not least, tonight (Sunday) Cami had her year end violin recital at which she played beautifully, if I do say so myself. I managed to capture a bit of her first song with the video feature on our digital camera......it's not like a good movie camera, but oh well. Better than nothing! Cami plays the melody first, then they switch, and she plays the harmony. It cuts off early.....wahhh! She played another song after this which was equally amazing (I'm not biased....really!). Not bad for a little over 2 years.

I love this piece.....Vivaldi is beautiful!

We had a nice Father's day as well. There was a SS class potluck, so Mark got "good" food for lunch - Ha! The kids gave him their card and present (2 Pink Panther movies) when we got home. After Cami's recital we went with Mom and Dad Carson over to Wendys for dinner.

Cousin Justin's Wedding

2008-06-15T21:37:00.000-07:00

The happy couple!

It was beautiful wedding after a hectic day!! Kendra took her first SAT all morning at Reseda High School, then we literally left 15 min after we got home to drive up to Clovis (NW Fresno) for Justin's wedding (Mark's cousin's son). The SAT went fine, all things considered, but it was a long drive, and we were right on time for the 5 PM event. The wedding was at a plant nursery where they had a beautiful garden area for weddings. This wedding was special for Mark and I because Justin was the little ring bearer in our wedding 19 years ago. Time sure flies!

Papa & Nana Todd

We also enjoyed seeing Mom & Dad Todd because they weren't able to make it to the Easter get together. We'll see them again in July when we go on vacation. It was a short-but-sweet visit!

Ben lovin' on his Nana!

Mark keeping cool with his dainty fan.....awwwww!

We were able to leave by about 9 PM, so we didn't get home until 12:30 (3-3.5 hr drive). We all fell asleep in church next morning. The girls had an extra "Joseph" rehearsal Sun. afternoon, so I wasn't able to get in a nap. Boy did I crash Sun. night! Whew.......too much for one weekend.

END OF YEAR RECITAL

2008-06-01T19:21:00.000-07:00

Goodbye for the summer!

Ben played in his teacher's end of year awards recital this afternoon. Grandma was so sad she didn't get to come (she had to work at the last minute). I made sure to take video clips for her. It was a lot of fun, low key, all the kids were so cute, and there was good food after. Ben's teacher usually takes quite a bit of the summer off (she travels a lot), and does lessons when she's in town, but this year she is getting a knee replacement, so no lessons at all (from her) till Sept. Ben has LOTS of new music to "mess around" with, though. And he'll be doing Piano Camp at Master's College again this summer. Plenty to keep him busy.

"In the Garden" by Gurlitt

"Machines in Motion"

Happiness is........

2008-06-01T00:48:00.000-07:00

.....being able to learn about Newton's Laws and play with your Hot Wheels at the same time!

Hooligan Entertainment at its finest!

2008-06-01T00:03:00.000-07:00

Annoying the neighbor's kitty......

Hooligan Dad was so proud! He, of course, would prefer to use cats for target practice (lets just say he's NOT a cat person, and there is currently a cat that enjoys......um......."recreating" outside our bedroom window at night lately, disturbing well earned rest), but being that it's against the law, he's happy for his children to annoy them.

Disneyland

2008-05-27T20:46:00.000-07:00

We had a great time at Disneyland. It was raining when we left, but didn't rain on us once all day. It was cool and cloudy, though, which was nice. Usually by afternoon I tend to get hot and sweaty, but we didn't have that problem this time. We were able to fast pass many of the longer lines, and other than the Nemo submarines we probably averaged about 15 min per line. Thats pretty good for a fairly crowded day on Memorial Day weekend. Ben's highlight was definitely getting picked to be in the Star Wars show. He got to fight Darth Mal, and it totally made his day! Now MY highlight was considerably nerdier. Check this out...

New-fangled hand dryers!!

Dyson makes these things, and they are really cool. Some time ago, I had seen a documentary about how they were invented, and was intrigued, so when I saw them in the bathrooms on Tom Sawyer Island, I was *very* excited. They must be test marketing them or something, because they were not in any of the other bathrooms in the park. Anyway, they use some sort of "air blade" technology that just "zshoooooooop!" takes the water right off your hands. It was definitely an "Ooooooohhh.......aaaahhhhhh" moment. I know....pretty pathetic. My kids roll their eyes when Hooligan Mom gets excited over this kind of stuff.

So, we didn't get home till after midnight...par for the course....and woke up to find the refrigerator had stopped. *again*. Grrrrrrr. We have a fridge gremlin that make our fridge stop for 2-4 days at a time every 6 mos or so, and then start again just when we're ready to get it looked at by the repairman (more on this later). So we pretty much ignored it, hoping it would start up again. Darryl kindly took us to Hometown buffet after morning church along with my parents, and after we got home I took him around to find a new camera (his old one broke). He found a good deal on a Nikon point & shoot at Sam's club. Yay! After night church we went to see Prince Caspian. It was pretty well done, although Kendra (aka spock) had her points of contention with Walden's adaptation. Ah well, so be it. She did agree that it WAS better than the old BBC version, even if Susan did kiss Caspian at the end ("How could they DO that?????").

We slept in Mon, then went up to visit Ruth and Robin (Nettelhorst) in Lancaster. A vegging day for the most part. I forgot the camera. The kids had fun playing Wii and jumping on the trampoline inbetween eating brownies. That about sums it up.

I got Darryl off to the airport in good time this morning, but when we stopped at the unload spot at Burbank airport, the 3 cars ahead of us got done faster than us, and the policeman was tweeting his whistle at us. In my hurrying Darryl out the door with his stuff, I made him forget one really important item. He left his book (leisure reading?) on the front seat which had his drivers license, money, and boarding pass in it. Oooops! Fortunately I noticed it right as I was leaving the airport, so I turned right around. He called Kendra, who called me. It took me about 1/2 hr to find him, however, because I didn't see him right off waiting outside, so I went INside to look. Well, after schlepping around in there for awhile, I went back out and found him. Sorry Darryl (sheepish grin).

Well, home to tackle the refrigerator problem. Before I left with Darryl, I called the fridge guys. They were supposed to come out between 10 and 1. Ok, fine. Well, they called saying they were about 20 min away at about 10:30. At exactly 10:45, the fridge started again. *head banging on wall*!!! 2 days this time. I decided to go ahead and have them look at it, just on the off chance that they were more inspired than they had been in the past. Well, I have now learned that if the machine is running, they have NO idea what to do. "If its not working we can find the problem....if it's running we can't find it". The standard $50 conclusion. This is the 2nd time we've paid for nothing. I felt strangely like Jack Aubry in Master and Commander, being chased by the "Phantom" - "He's done this to me 2 times......there will NOT be a third!!" We do know it is NOT the compressor (it gets nice and cold....when it's running). Which leaves the computer board, or the thermostat. Maybe....... So, praise the Lord. everyone is healthy, and God is good, whether the fridge works or not.

I ended this interesting day by going to pollworker training for 2 hours of utter tedium. I won't even begin to describe how exciting this training session was. Not.

And so the hooligans are creeping back to the real world.

Darryl made it.....

2008-05-23T22:08:00.000-07:00

.....and here is the activity of the hour: A rousing game of Apples to Apples. General hilarity is prevailing. D's plane got in pretty much on time. Ben went to the airport with Mark, while I was with the girls at their homeschool group's swim team (in the cold rainy weather. At least the water was really warm today.) We got into the 4:30 showing of Indiana Jones, and managed to snag upper seats, even though we didn't all get to sit together. Mental note that when going to see a blockbuster new release on a holiday weekend, get tickets in advance online, and be there an hour early to get good seats all together. It was fine, though. It was a fun movie....I give it 4 stars out of 5. Maybe not *quite* as good as the 3 previous in general, but a good action flick nonetheless. When the movie was over we decided on Vincenzo's Pizza for dinner.

Ben and Uncle Darryl

The H. Sisters in fine form!

My Hero

So......the game continues, we'll be up early to get to Disneyland tomorrow, and hoping it doesn't rain on us while we're there. To be continued....

From hot to ??????

2008-05-22T22:16:00.000-07:00

Well (deep subject), the unseasonably hot weather turned into just plain weird weather, although we personally didn't get the wackiest of it. Yesterday we had the worst wind I have ever seen (just about....at least in my limited memory) here. It was a gale all day long. Its a little unnerving sitting in your car in a parking lot and feeling the wind rocking the car. I'm not precisely sure when the wind stopped, but when I went to bed at 11:30 I looked out the bathroom window and it was dead calm. After the howling all day, it was sort of "twilight zonish" with the crickets chirping and all. Whatever the case, it's not hot anymore....yay! What with all the hail/snow/flooding/tornadoes today in various parts of S.CA (not here thankfully), it makes for a sort of interesting week, weather wise. (Not to mention that my sinuses went nuts from the wind and I've had a whopping headache all day today.....advil is my friend....)

From the "Whoda Thunk" files comes Hooligan 3's MTAC Theme recital (Sonatinas were the theme) update. Da-du-du-dum...........he placed in the "Winners Circle"!! They picked the top 1/3 of all the kids who played, and lo and behold, he made the grade! I confess to being a bad mother, because when his teacher told us yesterday at his lesson, I literally didn't believe her. Then I started laughing hysterically (you know....."how to make your child feel appreciated" - HA!). And then I panicked thinking he'd have to play it again...(he doesn't - it's a one-shot-deal....whew!). It just wasn't one of those times I felt he had played particularly well. I came away feeling like he could have used another week working on it (not to mention the kid forgot to bow at the beginning - oy vey!). So thats what I get for nit picking and not appreciating my hooligan's apparently more-than-adequate efforts. 2 judges gave mostly praise, 1 gave good constructive criticism along with his encouraging remarks. A nice way to end the piano year.....God is so good to give us fun surprises. WAY TO GO BEN!!

*Uncle*Darryl is coming tomorrow.....almost as much anticipated as Christmas in the Hooligan household. We'll have lots of pics next week for sure. Darryl is a longtime friend & college mate of Marks, who lives in Nevada, is single, and insists on coming every year to wine, dine, and entertain us. Ben especially likes playing board games when Darryl comes, as the hooligan sisters aren't up for playing them with him much anymore (we won't go there...). Anyway, Darryl has endless patience with the game crazy hooligan of the family. Since Darryl reads this blog on occasion, I'll put in that if anyone comes across a female-type that is interested in matrimony, he'd be happy to meet her. All us hooligans have, to date, failed miserably in finding him a wife. We plan to spend the weekend seeing movies, and enjoying Disneyland (unless it is too crowded, in which case Mark won't enjoy it as much). I'm just thankful that it will be about 70 deg instead of 90 deg at DL on Sat. Small blessings from the Lord.

Fun in the Sun...

2008-05-18T21:54:00.000-07:00

Well, the unseasonably warm May weather has enticed the hooligans to the pool. It actually has been right down HOT (95)! Ben and Dad had a lively game of Pelt and Dodge down at the pool this afternoon, Ben claiming "Champeen" status at dodging Dad's water balls, and Mark showing his "Champeen" status by nailing Ben fairly regularly. (shhhhh......... I think Dad won). All in good hooligan fun!

Sonata/Sonatina Festival

2008-05-17T12:15:00.000-07:00

Ben did a great job, had fun, and is thrilled to have that sonatina "out of his hair". In due time, we'll see what the judges thought. Its always nice to get constructive feedback (as long as it is constructive :o) ).

A little blurry, but a job well done!

Like a good hooligan, within 10 sec. of snapping this photo he had figured out how to pop the gold front off the ribbon. Fortunately for him it isn't hard to pop back on. Humph.

TGIF

2008-05-16T23:47:00.000-07:00

Well, Friday is upon us. Since Monday, the air temp has increased about 30 deg. It was about 63 deg, cold and cloudy on Mon. Today it is bright, clear and 95 deg. The temperature shifts this year are getting to me. I'd prefer a nice consistent 80, gradually moving up between now and July. But nooooooooo, this year it seems to be the 65/95 swing.

Mark and I duly noted 19 years of marriage on Tues. We went out for dinner last Fri. night, and went to see "Iron Man" Tues. night. We generally see a movie at a theater about 3 times a year: New Years day, our anniversary, and when Darryl is here. It's hard to believe that next year will be #20! Time flies when you're having fun! God has been so faithful to us in every way.

This was the first week of no AWANA.....ahhhhh......! I do love AWANA, but its nice to have a break for the summer. Lets see....what else have we been up to this week? School, of course. The kids are getting excited because Uncle Darryl (friend uncle, not real uncle) is coming next weekend, and that means FUN, MOVIES, DISNEYLAND!!!!!! Ben has enthusiastically attacked his new AWANA book. He got his Excellence award this year for finishing 2 T&T books, but is a book behind, and he REALLY wants to catch up this summer. He also has 1 last judged piano event on Sat., so he's had to buckle down this week and get last minute spiffing done on his piece. He's been a real trouper this year in his music. I actually sat down and counted it all up....he will have done 5 different judged events this year (Sonatina competition, Cert. of Merit, Bach festival, CAPMT festival, Theme recital) , 3 or so general MTAC recitals, and 2 studio recitals (with just his teacher's students). Heh...his teacher definitely pushed him into deeper water. But all for the good. He needs to be challenged, and he always rises to the occasion. All that to say: he'll get a well deserved rest from "serious" practice this summer, and it will be nice to successfully finish that last event. And now some low key pictures from today.....

A Nature Moment.......

Ben was so excited to see a bird's nest up in the rafters of the carport. He sneaked a photo of it. I'm not sure what kind of birds they are, but there are evidently chicks in the nest.

Hanging out with a hooligan pig!

Favorite hooligan reading material...........

Nice tongue Ben!

.........Users Manual for the Pirates computer game. Actually, he loves reading anything technical, and strongly dislikes reading anything historical or biographical. Sigh.....he didn't get MY genes, thats for sure. Yep. Give him chess books, almanacs, game instructions, user manuals, appliance booklets, travel brochures, and the like, and he's a happy camper. Pure fiction & fantasy are ok too. But historical fiction & biography??? Forget it. As I said......ain't my genes.

RATS!! You got me Mom!

Happy Mothers Day!!

2008-05-16T23:06:00.000-07:00

My amazing (and shrinking) mother!

She's been working hard at losing wieght,

and is looking great! I love you Mom!

On Mothers Day we traditionally meet my sister and bro-in-law for lunch up at the mall in Palmdale to celebrate. We enjoyed our leisurely lunch (Texas Cattle Co.....yum!!), had fun reading our cards, and finished the day by lounging around at my sister's house.

Kendra having a little too much fun at Texas Cattle Co.
with her cousins. Notice the impish grin.....no doubt
hatching some evil Mothers Day plot.....

Ben loves Aunt Kathy's house!!!

It's Wi time!!!!!

Further evidence of hooligan ancestry..........

My dear mother, the former linguist & grammar nut, lover of all things semantic, obviously had a wandering mind during this morning's sermon. Pastor Scott is preaching through the book of Mark, and evidently got to the part where Christ sent the disciples out. In pairs. Hmmmm. She mentioned to us at lunch the intriguing mental image (maybe like one of the Fruit-of-the-Loom guys????) she had when he read that part. Well, as we were about the leave my sister's house, I noticed her inspired artwork.

This piggy moment brought to you by hooligan #2 (that would be Cami).......

2008-05-16T22:59:00.001-07:00

Padme

Crega

End of the Awana year.....Mon May 5

2008-05-16T22:36:00.000-07:00

Well, the girls finished up their AWANA year at CVCC (Crown Valley Com. Church). They had a fantastic year, and both of them finished both their books (main study, and elective), and participated in both bible quizzing and AWANA games. Kendra only has 1 more year......she's getting sad just thinking about it. Lord willing she'll get her Citation award next spring, the highest award in AWANA, representing 13 years worth of work. My baby is growing up **sniff**!! Here are a couple pictures of her and Cami with their directors, the Mawhorters, at their awards night. I had to sit out this year in order to get Ben to his "Joseph" rehearsal (which the girls took an excused absence from), so Mark got to personally escort his lovely daughters.

**Miscellaneous photo alert**
Kendra busily doing a physics experiment

It had something to do with springs and sand.

AWANA Grand Prix

2008-05-16T21:54:00.001-07:00

Everyone had a good time racing their cars. The girls raced their cars in the "leader division" which only had about 5 or so cars altogether. Cami's car won a prize for something, but Kendra and Ben fell somewhere in the middle of the pack. Ben's car won a couple preliminary races, but got beat eventually. He was a bit heartbroken that he didn't win anything, but he handled it quite well.

Cami's and Kendra's cars

Ben's car all ready to go!

Waiting for the race to start

Kendra and Ariel on the sidelines

"On your mark.....get set....."

A tableful of cars

Getting ready for the AWANA grand prix

2008-05-01T22:29:00.000-07:00

Cami's car

Kendra's car

Ben's Car

Watch out world.....here come the hooligan cars! Fear not, there will be wheels on the cars by Sat. morning (carefully glued, aligned, and lubed by Dad). Everyone has had fun designing, sanding, and painting their respective cars.

And now for a few miscellaneous pictures....

Ben enjoying Mac & Cheese (you know....the base of his nutrition pyramid)

My mom (Jan Carson) showing off her svelt-but-not-showing-in-the-picture legs! She has been working on losing weight and is extremely proud of herself, so she was heartbroken that her legs didn't show in the picture. She wore shorts on purpose, in honor of their getting so trim.

A stealth piggy photo, obviously taken by Hooligan 3 (that would be Ben), judging from the Greek workbook upon which aforesaid piggy is sitting. We love Padme cuz she's so cuuute!

Orange belts

2008-05-01T21:54:00.000-07:00

Moving up in the world. White to orange. Next belt
will be orange with a black stripe, then yellow.

testing on the nunchuk (sp?) form

All our TKD buddies (the "straight" shot)

The goofy shot

Cami and Ben have worked really hard this quarter, each earned their new belt. They love Master Kim's taekwondo class. He and his family attend our church, so lots of homeschooling friends from church are in the class.He focuses heavily on character qualities, and since all the families in the homeschool class are Christian families, he relates everything to the bible (Go Master Kim!!!). If you want to see him in action, you can look here: http://www.yournotsosecretagent.com/2008SpringNationals.htm

Battling, butterflies, Batcade, and Bees!

2008-04-29T22:30:00.000-07:00

Daily aggression therapy right here at H.C.! Look at those hooligans dukin' it out!!

......The firmament showeth His handiwork.....

We took a nice hike up Towsley Cyn. a couple Sats. ago. The views were amazing, and the wildflowers were blooming. We have an amazing Creator, do we not?

Cami getting her car ready for the AWANA Grand Prix coming up this Sat.!

Goofing off at Batcade in Burbank for PE

Yikes!!

The bees occasionally like to get into cracks under the eaves of the apt. building, and other various places, and nest. These decided they like the vent, and made themselves right at home, unfortunately. The bees visible here were only the ones resting on the wall.......all the others were swarming in the air around it. Yay for pest control! They came out and nuked the critters good! Bye-bye bees. I made Cami stay inside the rest of the day because she is mildly allergic to bees and I wasn't up for major doses of benadryl if she got stung (bees seem to like her for some reason.....).

hooligan updates...and...Its TAX DAY!!!!!

2008-04-15T21:28:00.000-07:00

Yes, not the happiest of days, technically, but we are happy that we have Hooligan Dad back from his deep dark office cave where he hibernates 1/4th of the year with all the other poor accountants. I'm a bit behind updating the blog, so here are some random vignettes from the last few weeks. Again, it appears that the young hooligan ladies of the family have been avoiding the camera. I apologize officially for the seeming unfairness of it all, but such is life.

Ben enjoying his favorite subject....

unfortunately he especially likes the part of science that involves making glorious, exciting, wonderful messes. Messes of the sort that *I* get roped into A) helping set up, B) helping clean up. Ain't science grand? I have, over the years, I admit, been a member in good standing of HENSE (Home Educators Neglecting Science Experiments), but this photo is actual proof that not ALL is lost in this area.

Caught in the act!

I caught Ben enjoying his Bach....he didn't know I was behind him. There he was, happily playing away in his jammies, oblivious to the world around him. I love these moments!

"Mike Teevee, Mrs. Bucket, and Mrs. Salt"

Actually it's our good friends the Johnsons, who were in the Canyon Theater Guild production of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Brian played Mike TV, Mikayla played Mrs. Bucket, and Sarah played Mrs. Salt (you know....Veruca's mother.....eeeewwww). We drive Sarah and Mikayla up to AWANA in Acton most Wed. nights, and Kendra and Cami drive home with them. We got to go see the last performance they did, and it was so much fun. They all did a great job.

Ben was desperate to get his picture with "Mike TV" (aka Brian).

Jr. Bach Festival!

Ben did a great job, played his best, and had a wonderful time. He has learned so many valuable lessons in process of studying music. The practicing isn't always fun, but for THIS particular hooligan, performing is a blast!

Mrs. Peterson & Ben

This is Ben's amazing, fabulous, incredible, ........well, she's just the best......piano teacher! Anyone who can teach a hooligan (especially this one) for 4 years week in and week out, and still enjoy it, ranks way up there in my book. I am SO thankful to the Lord for this wonderful teacher who loves my (admittedly quirky) son for who he is. She was an answer to prayer, and is continuing evidence that God always provides above and beyond what we can even ask or think!

Sunday night recreation.....(!!!!!!)

So I asked him......."Son.......did you have to spend THAT much time on your knees on the grass?????.........really????!!!!" (pondering more fond moments with the Spray-n-Wash)

"But mom, it wasn't the GRASS'S FAULT! It was the CHLOROPHYLL!" (dramatic pause)......."Someday I'm gonna invent a machine that'll suck ALL the chlorophyll out of the grass!"

And last but not least..........

Cami's good buddy Ariel.....

who we've been carefully training in the fine art of hooligan dining......notice the perfectly placed french fry sticking out of the mouth........I'm sure that in another year or so she'll have mastered the "french fries sticking out of the nose" technique. Ahhhh....another fine few weeks here at hooligan central! Stay tuned!

Back to the park for PE on Monday!

2008-03-28T00:06:00.000-07:00

It was a beautiful day to start back to PE at the park with APS. We finished up our month of bowling, and it's time for baseball.

Well, we made the traditional trek up to Reedly (south of Fresno) for Mark's family's Easter bash. It's a big "whoever shows up" type picnic at the farm of Mark's cousin (Keleen) and her husband (Harlan), and the weather was especially beautiful this year. We usually go to church in Visalia, where we have a few friends that we rarely see, like the Carey's. Mark knows the family from waaaay back, and this is Barbara Carey who was one of my favorite roomates in college. We got along great, being that she has hooligan tendencies also (evidenced by the fact that 1. she dated my current, very hooligan, brother-in-law for a spell, and 2. kept a pet tarantula). Whatever the case, it was a blessing to be able to celebrate Christ's resurrection, with plenty of "He is risen!"s and "He is risen indeed!"s sprinkled throughout the service. A time to remember that we serve a RISEN savior.

There was an easter egg hunt of sorts after the service, and somehow Ben managed to find the Golden Egg -- literally! It had a 1$ bill in it! Score!

We spent the afternoon enjoying family, eating lots of good food, petting all the dogs (around 9 or 10 total (including Flint's dogs, and other families who brought their dogs), and playing around. One of the cousins actually flew in! There is a little airstrip about a mile away from the farm, and her boyfriend flew with her in his little airplane from nearer the coast. They buzzed the farm when they left, and we all waved at them. We missed Mark's parents this year, and were sad to not get to see them. They usually come down, but ended up having to stay home.

Family, Food, Fun!

Good Good Friday

2008-03-21T15:31:00.000-07:00

In honor of the beginning of spring, I paused this morning to note the difference between those who have a knack for gardening and those who don't. Ahem.

A plant that Mom takes care of.......

A plant that Cami takes care of....

OK, now that it's clear who the horticulturally challenged person in the family is, I'll just say that I do enjoy pretty flowers, and as long as I let Cami tend to them I enjoy them for a lot longer. I just got these flowers (look below) at Costco cuz they were pretty, and I took the picture of the tree today....I love this time of year when all the trees are blooming!

Guess who was at Walmart this morning??

No self respecting hooligan mom would turn down the chance to get a picture of her darlings with "Giselle" and "Edward" (heh heh). I only had to resort to threatening one, and blackmailing another. Not too difficult all things considered. After all, it's my sworn duty to thoroughly embarass my adolescent children at least 3x a week. (They love the "Enchanted" movie, and we just bought it 2 days ago, so you'd think they'd just *leap* at the chance to mug for the camera with the famous characters, right??) OH OH......you also must note "Saint Kendra the Divine" standing front and center with the miraculous halo above her head! Its like having our own "tortilla-with-the-virgin-mary". Very cool.

Ok, the kids HAD to do eggs (I keep telling them its OK to not do eggs if you don't want to.....hint hint......). As long as THEY clean up the mess, I'm fine with it.

Week in review, Easter approaching....

2008-03-20T23:11:00.000-07:00

Last Fri ended with a healed piano (thank the Lord), and we promptly jumped right into Certificate of Merit on Sat. for Ben (piano level 4) and Cami(violin level 2). They both have been working really hard on their music, technique and theory all year for this evaluation. It was Cami's first experience doing a theory test, and being evaluated, so it was a bit stressful for her, but she survived nicely I think. A bit under protest, admittedly, but she saw it through and did well. I was proud of her for hanging in there. This was Ben's 3rd year, so at least he "knew the ropes". Being that most of the hooligan clan would, at best, be considered athletes of dubious quality, music has always been Ben's "sport", and CM is sort of like the "championship game" of the season for him. He loves the challenge of it, and loves to play. So, I'll have my "proud mommy" moment and say that even though he still can't manage to button his shirt straight, get his clothes on right-side-out, or get from point A to point B without 10 stops and at least 2 meltdowns in between, he did an awesome job on CM, getting a 5+, the highest possible overall score! He had to do a written theory test (took him over an hour this year.... tough, but good for him), then an evaluation with judge where they test on sightreading, technique (scales/chords/cadences in various keys), and he had to play 3 different memorized pieces at his level. Its fun to do, but we're glad to be done! With THAT anyway. He has about 4 more recitals & competitions left this spring, so we aren't *exactly* done yet.

Yay!! it's over!!

We've been studying early Am. history lately, so I got a couple pics of Ben working on one of his projects this week.

History Pockets are lots of fun!

The hooligans LOVE their Grandpa!!

He's the "ice-cream man".......no matter where we are, he is compelled to get ice cream for any and all persons present (whether they like it or not - hah!). Needless to say my kids were in serious ice-cream withdrawal last year when Grandpa & Grandma were in Africa! They are quickly making up for lost time, however, and Costco is a favorite ice cream spot!

Update on the "dreamcoat".......

Auditions for Joseph are OVER!! We weren't even sure Ben would get either of the parts he tried out for (with 200 + kids, you just can't count on anything), but wonder of wonders.............

He got BOTH parts!!

What a neat surprise! All 3 hooligan children are deliriously excited to be in Joseph. It's gonna be a GREAT show!

God provides -- piano is healed!!

2008-03-14T14:00:00.000-07:00

After waking up this morning wishing it had all been a bad dream, I carefully righted the piano and gave it a whirl. Halleluia!! it worked!! gravity and hair dryers to the rescue! It sounds perfect, and we all collectively cheered (Yay God!!!) and heaved huge sighs of relief. Ben most of all :o). Kudos to Yamaha for building a digital piano that can be ressurrected......at least once. Hopefully we won't tempt fate again. In case anyone is curious, it is a p70, bottom of the line Yamaha digital, with only 10 different voices, but GREAT sound and feel.

And so we traipsed off to start the girl's 10 wks of swimming with significantly lighter spirits. Ben did lap swimming while the girls worked out with the APS group, swimming a total of 16 laps for a good workout. He's a bit slap-happy today, now that a $500 debt is no longer hanging over his head (as he put it...."I am SOOOOOOOOOO LUCKY mom!!!!!!!!"........I told him luck had nothing to do with it, it was ALL GOD'S GRACE!!) Here he is at the pool, one relieved boy!

Grace for the day...

2008-03-13T22:49:00.000-07:00

Ummm.....ya know in that last post, when I said "Next week should provide some opportunities to trust the Lord with everyday stresses."??? Well, the Lord took me up on the offer.

What's this?? Why - an upside down digital piano of course!! Huh....cluttered floor.....upside down piano...........typical hooligan decor. And what does this have to do with stress???

Weeeeellllll, you know what happens when you drop your cell phone in the pool???? About the same thing happens when water gets spilled on a digital piano keyboard. Only it's potentially a LOT more expensive! Hmmm...and *I* didn't do it......and *Kendra* didn't do it.......and *Cami* didn't do it. Yep, that about sums up the day. Lets just say that we're (especially a certain hooligan boy) praying that gravity, low humidity, and the Lord Himself will provide a miraculous ressurrection. Then, you see, the other tricky thing is that this certain boy has about 5 more major piano events in the next 2 months, necessitating *frequent* practice. Sigh. Grace for each day.......thats all I need. The Lord will provide. To Be Continued.......

shucks, no pics!

2008-03-09T22:53:00.000-07:00

So here it's been a whole week, and not only have I not updated, but we actually went hiking today, and I should have had the camera but didn't. I'll confess, I did NOT want to go hiking, but knew that my going would make the hooligan crew happy, as well as provide much needed exercise, so I went. I went with an exceptionally sinful rotten attitude, hoping that all the good endorphins provided by the exercise would help. Incidently, what I really wanted to do was take a nap and enjoy an empty house with NO kids! So, I wasn't even thinking about the camera while we were getting ready to go. Sigh. Well, we hiked up the cyn at the end of San Fernando Rd. to the waterfall......we've done this before.....and it took me the whole way up to get unfunked. I spent the whole hike in, confessing my nasty thoughts to the Lord. On a positive note, it's a beautiful hike, VERY local (10 min from our house to trailhead), and the waterfall had lots of water due to all the rain we've had. We climbed up to the second level of the falls, which is a pretty steep climb up from the first level, and we had never done that before. When all was said and done (all 3-4 miles), I DID feel better, it was a gorgeous day, the kids had a wonderful time, and the exercise WAS good for me. I had to ask Kendra's forgiveness for some unkind words, though, AND, I missed what could have been some great pictures..... :o( . Oh well, next time, and I'm glad that the God is gracious and forgiving. We got back just in time to get ready for church and go, which accounted for Kendra, Cami, and I taking turns falling asleep during the service. Oh, and adding a bit of insult (smile) to everything else, the plant we saw on the hike that my dear husband assured me was lupine, and I was "sure (!!!)" wasn't, turned out to be.........lupine (according to the picture in the field guide). I should know better by now than to argue with an Eagle Scout over plants.

Next week should provide a few opportunities to trust the Lord with everyday stresses (emphasis on "everyday"....there are families in our church that have SERIOUS stresses....these don't even begin to fall into that category!) . Mark's corporate tax deadline is next week, so he needs grace for that last minute scramble to get it all done. Next Sat. is the Certificate of Merit exam for both Cami (violin) and Ben (piano). They each have to take their respective written theory exams, and be judged on their 3 or so pieces and technique (scales, chords, etc.). So this week is music practice crunch time, which tends to stress me out. Ben is also doing his audition for "Joseph" tomorrow night (he's trying out for a duet/dance in the Potiphar scene, and a group number at the beginning of the Pharoah scene), which doesn't stress him out in the least, but gives me the willies. Not to mention I HATE wating for callback lists to be posted. Any outcome is fine, and it's all in the Lord's hands......its just for fun anyway.......but I still get that teensy bit of adrenaline flowing during weeks like this that makes me tired. I'm trusting the Lord to help me to let his Word "dwell in me richly", so that by the end of the week I can still be "singing with grace in my heart to the Lord".

We'll probably finish the "bunny book" tomorrow (Watership Down), so that will be fun. Cami and I both *cough cough* know the end..*cough*..ing, but it will still be fun to read it outloud. Alas, Kendra is the only one with enough self control to not read ahead. A terrible vice, I admit....maybe....I've been known to read books backwards before :o).

And so a new week begins, loaded with "appointments" from the Lord, blessings yet unknown, lessons to be learned, children to be discipled, challenges to be faced, and.......a bit of laundry. Actually, a bit of...............

THIS!!

Ha! my one picture, to accountable-ize my domestically challenged self for tomorrow!

MARANATHA! (if you don't know what this means, look it up :o) )

A new look for spring...and a photoless Friday

2008-03-01T00:28:00.000-08:00

OK, that was sort of fun.....I spent all evening figuring out how to load a new template. And keep my widgets intact. I eventually got the knack of it. I saw the pretty spring layout on one of the free blogger layout sites, and decided to figure out how to do it. I like it. Kendra and Cami won't like it, but oh well.....I'll change it again eventually now that I know how.

So it was a blah sort of day. I've been tired all week, and on the verge of getting a cold. I haven't got one, though, so halleluia. I just need a good sleep in day. I didn't accomplish much on today's list. Everyone had a good time bowling. I had an e-mail that I felt compelled to spend way too long replying to, and while I was in e-mail land Ben and Cami had a whopping good time screaming,chasing, and wrestling (not to mention thumping loudly) upstairs. For.....oh.....a good 45min solid. They were literally sweating when they finally came downstairs. Can we count this as PE?? On the plus side, *some* schoolwork got done......I think.......; I did get that e-mail finished anyway. The piggy cage got cleaned, even if nothing else did. Kendra informed me that she thought my new chore schedule was pretty good (high praise from the ultra pragmatic hooligan critic). I responded by agreeing with her that it was good because there wasn't so much on the list each day that we couldn't make up the work the next day.....(hint hint). Being that nothing on the list got done today. Heh. Guess what all the happy hooligans get to do tomorrow morning?? Anyway we went to Costco, when Mark got home, for milk and some "haute cuisine" (pizza that is). I sat down, figured out the blog stuff, everyone went to bed finally, and I'm going to do the same.

Checkin' it out....

2008-02-28T21:53:00.000-08:00

Kendra and Cami take a writing class out in Canyon Country, up at the top of White's Cyn., and every Thurs. morning, when we drive by the new park that we watched being built last year, Ben has begged to stop and play...."After all, Mom, it has our name!!" So today, in honor of it being especially gorgeous and warm (and with apologies to all those in the Midwest and East who are, at this moment, buried in snow), we stopped at the park.

Ben in front of "his" park

checking out the climbing wall

Hanging around

A beautiful view of our valley

By the time we were done at the park it was obvious that going all the way home and coming back would be neither time nor cost effective, so we sat at the closest donut shop and did a little schoolwork. And ate a donut. What is the point of homeschooling, after all, if you can't do your Greek at the donut shop occasionally?

The joys of homeschooling!

Weekend part 2: AWANA Games!!

2008-02-23T20:34:00.000-08:00

The second part of the weekend was the games at Arcadia H.S. this afternoon (Sat). The teams compete in 10 different events that I won't even try to describe. They had great fun, and placed a respectable 2nd place in the prelim. round. They won the "sudden death" match with the other 2nd place team to see who would go on, but ended up losing soundly in the semifinals.

The games always begin with the flag salute. The CVCC team is directly in the foreground of the pic. with their black shirts & bar codes (says "bought with a price..." underneath).

Basketball relay: Kendra is 2nd from left.

Kendra running in the Marathon Medly. Unfortunately, the boy that Kendra passed the baton to ended up knocking down a pin so they were disqualified. Boo hoo!

Cami (looking attractive), good buddy Sarah Johnson & Kendra, waiting to compete.

Post-games photo.....it had started raining while we were in the gym & I didn't catch them all smiling, but there they all are anyway. They did a great job!

"MOOOOOOMMMM TAKE US HOOOOOOOOMMMMME SO WE CAN...............

VEGGIE-TATE !!!!!!!!" (like good little hooligans)

Weekend part 1: Bible Quizzing

2008-02-23T20:11:00.000-08:00

Part 1 of the big AWANA weekend - quizzing. It took place last night (Fri.) at Grace Baptist, and 36 teams quizzed from the LA area 24/7 clubs. Kendra and Cami were on the same team from Crown Valley Com. Church (Acton, CA), where they do AWANA 24/7 (high school level). This is Kendra's 5th year at CVCC, and Cami's 3rd. The quiz was over this years main study: Romans.

The girls both studied diligently, and it paid off - their team took 3rd place overall! Kendra was happy because she actually stood up to answer 2 different speed quiz questions - something she has never had the nerve to do before. I keep telling my girls that it doesn't matter how well you can recite those verses, or whip out the answers: what matters is whether it makes a difference in how you live every day.

The team getting ready to quiz

A Kodak moment with the AWANA missionary's wife

CVCC had 2 bible quiz teams. Kendra and Cami were on team #1. Here's the whole group with their leaders/coaches, the Mawhorters. I'm so thankful to the Lord that my girls have the privilege to learn from this wonderful couple. They love & shepherd my girls every week and are such a blessing to our family.

Ben having fun on his heelies before the quiz started. (isn't that what one is supposed to do in between pews?????)

Wednesday TKD

2008-02-23T17:09:00.000-08:00

I've been wanting to get a few pictures of Taekwondo class. Both Ben and Cami love going, and it's great exercise, as well as great discipline.

Ben and his buddy Wyatt

Ready with "nun/num chucks" in hand. Ben likes to make jokes about all the things you can do with "nuns" besides "chucking" them.

Piggies, Bunnies, ToDo's, $traffic tickets$

2008-02-19T23:03:00.000-08:00

That about sums up the day. Lets see....

PIGGIES!....Guinea that is

I had fun taking some piggie-eye views of them. I stuck the camera down in the cage to get them on eye level. The hooligan children spoil these creatures to death. They'd have their own hot tub if they suspected guinea pigs liked them. Padme at the top is in her favorite spot - square in the middle of the pile of hay! Crega's Red Eyes Of Death are shining brightly down below (ha).

BUNNIES!....the imaginary kind.

We are loving this book! Its been on the shelf since before the kids were born, I'm sure, but strangely enough I never bothered to pick it up. Being rather a hopeless bibliophile, I'm sure that would surprise many (that there is a book in my house that I haven't read), but it does happen on occasion. It was one I "planned" to read "sometime". Whatever the case, it is a fantastic story, and very well written. It's about bunnies who go on a quest of sorts to find a new place to live. Thats the ultra condensed version, anyway. Ben was not happy when we began reading the "bunny book". What self respecting boy wants to read a book about bunnies? However, as I knew would happen, he's right in there with the rest of them wrestling me to the couch trying to make me read longer! And you probably think I'm joking about the wrestling. This IS Hooligan central you know. Anyway, this is a great long juicy book.....we love those kind!

And last but not least.......To Do lists

I found this cute little 1-week white-board thingie at Office Max, and couldn't resist finding a good use for it. Much to the chagrin of my darling children, it now has all their chores happily color coded on it (idiot proof you know). Unfortunately for me, MINE are also color coded on there too (you guessed it....I'm the idiot!), so no more claiming ignorance for anybody. Being somewhat domestically challenged, I'm trying to go for basics.

OK, here was today's list:

Ben is colored red, and I'm trying to encourage bathing more often, so I put that on his list for T and TH (he'd be good for once a month if we'd let him). He was a little miffed when I sent him off tonight to take his bath, as he was in the middle of a good computer game, and he declared he would "hurry". Hmmm. I made sure to remind him that hurry was fine a long as it included soap AND shampoo. You'll notice, I'm sure that there are a few unchecked places, but those actually got done, yay! You'll also notice what a good delegator I am....MY color is brown. Unfortunately the task also falls on me to be the checker, slavemaster, and helper (not to mention schoolteacher and taxidriver), lest anyone think that all I did today was mop. The Lord is working on this area of my life, so a cool whiteboard thingie doesn't hurt.

Oh, and that last part of the blog title with the $ things......I had to go pay it at the courthouse today because they never sent it to me in the mail. Lets just say that I really, REALLY never wish to go there *ever* *again*. Goodnight.

Busy Ben

2008-02-15T15:11:00.000-08:00

Here are some "ING" things Ben's been up to......

Get-ting as much AWANA as possible done in the 3 weeks between Oliver and Joseph.

Listen-ing to his history cd with Padme the piggy.

Practic-ing piano like crazy cuz all the spring piano "stuff" (Certificate of Merit, CAPMT festival, Bach Festival, theme recital........it makes my head spin frankly) is looming.

Flex-ing (whoo-hoo!) as ONLY Duct Tape Man can!!

Finish-ing up his music theory to be ready for the theory test at Cert. of Merit in March. He's doing level 4 this year, and its no cake walk! Young master hooligan was actually bellowing like Tarzan over the page you see in the photo, and I BEGGED him to give me a good "screaming" picture, but alas he refused, and insisted on smiling every time. Phooey on him! You can also take note of the hooligan tendency to prefer the floor for study-ing.

A valentiney sort of week....

2008-02-15T14:32:00.000-08:00

My sweet husband didn't forget valentine's day. I was already in bed Wed night when he brought my flowers home, so since Cami was still up, and she is the flower expert anyway, I had her put them in a vase. She arranged them beautifully, as you can see.

I gave the kids some valentines stuff this year...candy etc. because I do actually love them, and I haven't gone very overboard for a few years. I tried to send Mark a nice hallmark e-card, but the server was down at the website, then after all that, It dawned on me that (duh!) he wasn't even at the office, but was out at a client. Sigh. I'll be sending him one today, on the day after instead.

Well, bowling was the curriculum of the morning, as has been the case most Fridays for the last several weeks. The girls love doing sports with their homeschooling friends from APS, our umbrella school/support group.

Cami & friends

The whole group

Kendra et al

Ben loves to bowl , also, when we are there with the girls. He gets to bowl on Mondays as well, because his P.E. coop class is bowling this month. He has improved a LOT since he was about 6, and we started coming every year. It's been fun to see him go from rolling the ball between his legs to actually having good form and not needing bumpers. He was happy today because his first 2 games both started off with strikes!

Cupcake decorating

2008-02-09T12:09:00.000-08:00

We went to a little cake decorating workshop at church this morning. The girls had fun decorating their cupcakes. They came home wanting to do a whole cake (umm, not today, ok?) Notice the cool Oliver T-shirt that Cami has on. Also, they both actually smiled for the camera!! After a bit of threatening anyway.

Just in time for Valentine's day! (But we all know they'll be gone before then.)

And should anyone wonder where the dad of the family is.........

2008-02-07T16:16:00.001-08:00

He's in tax-season land till April!

AWANA drive-in movie night.....

2008-02-07T16:03:00.001-08:00

This is what comes of giving a very creative 14yo girl a long box with which to make her little brother's car for drive-in movie night. Hmmmm.....think it's time for him to make his own car??? Just a typical night at hooligan central.

Super Tuesday!!

2008-02-05T17:38:00.000-08:00

Kendra the happy pollworker!

Bye bye "Oliver".......bye bye hair!!

2008-02-04T21:24:00.000-08:00

The best picture I can manage of the hooligan sisters.

Looking civilized again! (well, I need a shirt, but...)

I let Ben's hair get shaggy for the play, but my scissor fingers were itching there toward the end. AHHHHHHH.......he looks normal again (or as Kendra sweetly told him..."you look geeky again!") Here he is, at least back in his "right hair" if not yet his "right mind". By the way, if there seems to be a lack of photos of the hooligan sisters, it is not my fault. For a season they seem to be running from cameras, making me have to be ever so sly if I'm to catch one of them on film. Just a disclaimer.

Pickpocket/workhouse boy Ben

2008-02-04T20:09:00.000-08:00

Backstage, dancing like a maniac

Cute little workhouse boy!

Engrossed in playing cards

OH-li-vah, Oh-li-vah......!

2008-02-02T23:04:00.000-08:00

Well, play in full swing! The littlest munchkins (or pickpockets) are so cute. Pics coming soon. I found the camera. Its been a hectic production week, but most of the rehearsals were only a couple blocks away (thank you Lord). I got to actually sit in the audience and watch it today, with all the family & friends, and enjoyed it immensely. Everyone did a great job, Ben included. He had a few um.......costume issues, that had me saying wha...., huh???, most of the way through, but thats pretty normal. He started out mostly the picture perfect little pickpocket - except that his shirt was buttoned a bit cockeyed. But that just made him look more...well... "authentic". About halfway through the first pickpocket scene I noticed that his hat was missing. OK, WHERE did the hat go?? Hmmmm. Well, off they went, and he was hatless for awhile. THEN, when they came back in toward the end, he had someone else's hat on, but no coat! What??? I was sort of surprised they let him onstage with no coat (they can be sticky about having all your costume pieces), but I suppose grace reigned. Sigh. Well, when the performance was over we tramped over the stage and found his hat under a big pile of burlap sacks in the set room (????), and retrieved his coat. This is why I put bright orange tape with his name on all his costume pieces. There you go. It was a wonderful performance. He was a fabulous lead pickpocket, and he and Cami are in 1 more - they get to go watch tomorrow, and perform tomorrow night, and I'll be chaperoning both tomorrow.

Cherry Chocolate Dr. Pepper, and more...

2008-01-19T21:14:00.000-08:00

Well, the end of another busy hooligan week! And the ink wasn't even dry on that first auspicious sentence when I was forced to respond to cries of panic from Kendra standing arm deep in front of the freezer struggling to keep the avalanche of frozen food from ending up on the floor as she dug deep for the vanilla ice-cream! And what do you suppose she needed it for???? HA! - I titled this blog entry before the ill fated freezer avalanche, and what is she trying to make but a Cherry Chocolate Dr. Pepper float! I'm a prophet. Anyway, the other hooligans took - pause for a Cherry Chocolate Dr. Pepper taste test.........yummmmmmmmmm......the float is even better!! - advantage of the distraction to begin a wrestling match on the sofa, followed by Kendra and I having tug of war with 3 big plastic tumblers that have been stubbornly wedged together for at least a month. It seems someone tries unsuccessfully to unwedge them about once a week, then puts them back in the cupboard. Kendra tried 1. tug of war, 2. hot water, and 3. throwing them on the floor as hard as possible. No dice. Back in the cupboard. Maybe one of these weeks fate will smile on the tumblers.
Incidently, the CC Dr. P came from Walmart.....we spied it this afternoon and immediately said "oooooooooooooooh!! THAT sounds good!" The box says "limited edition", so I guess we'll enjoy it while it's around. We were really at Walmart to try finding black warmup type pants for Kendra for her AWANA games. Didn't get pants, but walked out with our few eclectic hooligan-type "essentials". CC Dr. P, new sunglasses for me, and a box of 'black' (very cool) ticonderoga pencils. Like we need more pencils. If we'd just clean out the couch we'd be resupplied for the rest of the year. But the black ones are really cool.

Highlights of our week:
God was SO good.....I had exactly 1 hr at Goodwill last Sun. afternoon to find a jacket for Ben's pickpocket costume. They had to wear their costumes Mon. night, and I was under the gun. After about .5 hr of wandering and despairing, I found something that turned out to be great, AND I also found better pants for his costume than the ones I was going to use! Yay!
Cami is liking the online Alg. course (free is good as well). So far so good.
Ben bowled a 128 on Friday! Way to go!
My good buddy Jeanne M. picked Ben up from pickpocket practice Wed. night so I didn't have to leave AWANA.
Ben "shook it off" (his own words, bless his heart) about 3 times instead of melting down this week. We had mostly goodish days, which is better than terrible/horrible/no-good/very bad ones.

I wish I had the camera...not sure where it wandered to in the last few days. I really wanted to include pics of the CC Dr. P, Ben as a pickpocket etc. Grrrrr. All the great blog photos I saw today gave me blog envy. My blog just has......words ..........."sniff!!". Once I get my photo "system" down...."watch out world!" Heh!

Must.....keep......blogging......

2008-01-10T22:36:00.000-08:00

Well, one paltry Christmas picture does not an interesting blog make, but I confess it was taking too long to upload pictures, so I put blogging on hold till my Christmas present arrived. YAY!!!! New computer & dsl. The new i mac has a partitioned drive so we also have windows xp, which makes me feel somewhat schizophrenic on occasions. Ah, but the sheer speed is heady stuff! The hooligan kids are enjoying the photo programs, making silly movies, morphing their pictures and the like.

School has begun again in earnest, (I think), along with all the other activities (read "driving") that go along with. "Oliver" rehearsals are in more than full swing, getting more intense as we wind down to Feb 1,2, and 3. I'm trying to get some last minute costume stuff together that I haven't got yet....aaaaahhhhgggg! They have to wear their costumes this Mon.! I found out that Ben's sonatina festival is the 26th - the day before the first major rehearsal of production week. That will be a busy weekend.
**blog interrupted by Ben's goodnight "spiel":

"Goodnightsleeptightdon'tletthebedbugsbiteandiftheydohitthemwithashoetillthey'reblackandblue *blows a kiss*.......MOM! you're supposed to kiss back! (mom dutifully obliges)......and I'm supposed to tell you that for some WIERD reason, Dad wants you to make his lunch tonight." and up the stairs he goes..... ***

Sometimes I just want to pinch his little cheek he's so cute! Not cool at 11, however. Anyway, I, for one, am not quite in "school" headspace yet. Sigh.

Christmas trees, etc.

2007-12-13T23:00:00.000-08:00

Christmas is coming!

2007-12-10T22:50:00.000-08:00

Yes, the holiday season descends upon the hooligan household, bringing with it recitals, concerts, advent readings, colder weather (some years anyway), Christmas lists, parties, and waaaaayyyy too much food. Every time I venture out into the big bad world of *shopping*, I do penance for not having it all done by the end of November. Oh well. I'm at about 50%, so there is hope. Ben's and Cami's recitals are done; both hooligan children performed respectably on their respective instruments. My mother got to see Cami play her violin for the first time in over a year, because the hooligan grandparents were "home" in Africa for all last year again, running a guest house for the mission agency they were with for 25+ years while I was growing up. Grandma was definitely impressed by Cami's progress over the last year. She is playing really well for only having had lessons for just under 2 years (if I do say so myself). Grandma enjoyed the recital far more than Cami enjoyed playing for it, I'm sure, but thats the stuff of life.
Ben barely managed to sing in his choir for the Christmas concert at church this last weekend after having a nasty cold that made him miss the dress rehearsal. Fortunately he was well enough to make the performances, and the kids only sang 2 of the songs anyway. The concert was beautiful. It always puts me in the Christmas mood, and reminds me - again - of why Christ came. All it did for Ben, I'm afraid, was culminate about 4 days of being a total slug with his disease, which made today, Monday, a school day, a bit.....shall we say....more distasteful than average for him. But we persevered!!!
Today was also the last PE coop class of the semester. It was a free play/party day, marred only by Ben having to spend the first 15 mins time-outing in the car to atone for his bad attitude of last PE day (Mom supervised the kickball game & made the ultimate parental faux-pas of calling her ds "out" at first base.....oh the depths of hooligan humiliation!!!! Being called out by your MOTHER!!). Not being one to let such a parental blunder go unpunished, let us just kindly say that he provided himself another wonderful opportunity to experience the Lord's discipline and learn Godly wisdom. *cough*. Nuff said. It was a great afternoon, Dear Hooligan Son was a model of obedience (at least for those 2 hours), and it was a fun way to wind up the semester.
So it's feeling like Christmas, which makes it difficult for all the little & not so little Hooligans to focus on schoolwork. Santa-Mommy must always grab that jolly little whip from the bottom of her sleigh and crack it nice and loud to keep the little reindeer-hooligans flying! Aside from the whip cracking, though, we are again enjoying all the reminders of our Savior's great love for us. He has blessed us SO much this year, as he always does, through good times and hard times, joys and sorrows. He is truly faithful to our family of sinful hooligans (smile), and He is our daily Prince of Peace.

happy hooligan thankgiving!!

2007-11-23T22:27:00.000-08:00

Well, thanksgiving day was lovely. Mom and Dad were with us (my sister & husband, myself & Mark), which is a big reason for thanks this year, as last year they were in Africa and we had to do without them :o(. As usual we convened at my sister's house, where, unlike our apartment, there is more room, a yard, 2 computers, and satellite tv. Not to mention a double recliner sofa in front of said tv. Oh yes.....and there is wiiiiiiiiiiiii! Bro. in law and nephew (Alex, 15) are gaming nuts, so Ben was in wi-heaven all day. And yes, we did enjoy sharing what we were thankful for around the table. God is so good to provide all that we need. The hooligan children and cousins were a tad silly around the table (note Cami avoiding the camera, Ben eating everyone with "Mr. Shark", and Kendra ready for mayhem with knife in hand, while dad ignores it all in the background). I forget what all the teenage hooligans were thankful for, but lets just say that goofiness was in full swing, and its a good thing I can't remember. It could have had something to do with Grandma *not* making her orange-carrot-raisin jello...hmmm. Ben redeemed his siblings and cousins by his momentary burst of angelic sincerity, stating that he was thankful that Jesus died on the cross for us. I'm afraid that my sister took all the "nice" photos with her good camera, so unless she e-mails me some, its goofy pics all the way, I'm afraid. Here is my nephew Alex's meal of maraschinos....actually he had some other stuff too, but it looked like that was all he would be eating!and here is Cami and Tabitha (age 12), avoiding the evil mom-lady with the camera. And so a good time was had by all. football was watched, games were played, food was eaten, naps were taken, family was enjoyed, God was praised. All in all, a little slice of heaven (well, not sure if there will be wi in heaven, but there are surely some who would insist that it should be!).

Being that I am tending to miss some blogging days, I'll just fill in that lest we all get the impression that Ben is just a gun-slinging, shark-eating madman, he does have his moments of decorum.

Busy day, busy week

2007-11-17T22:39:00.000-08:00

Finished the day off by watching Amazing Grace, about Wm. Wilberforce. Quite a fascinating and moving story. We read aloud the account by Elouda (?) Equiano last year, but Kendra insists she remembers nothing of it, and had a hard time following the movie. I, however, thoroughly enjoyed it, and followed everything (phthththt!) I even paused the movie a couple times to explain what was going on (teachable moments, you know...), so I know she at least got the gist of it, if not more. I'm convinced that she understands far more than she lets on. Phooey on 16 year olds. She'll thank me someday.

It was quite the week for trying to get school done. Tuesday the girls and I, along with all of Kendra's Econ. class, went down to downtown LA to the Federal Reserve Bank. Another instance in which I appreciated the experience far more than my ungratefully wretched children (may God have mercy on their souls!). Kendra DID enjoy playing the "find the counterfeit bill" game at the museum on the ground floor, and they were at least sort of impressed with the football field size vault of money we got to peek into, but you would think I was purposely out to bore their socks off, the way they talk. Now see, I thought it was really cool to see the bags and bags of money, see the machine that scans incoming money from banks for old bills to shred, etc. On the other hand, GETTING to downtown LA is never a pleasant experience. So once I was there, I was thrilled to be doing anything other than driving! Anyway, in a nutshell, it was a cool field trip, traffic was horrid and stressful, I forgot to eat breakfast and had NO blood sugar by the time we got back at 2 PM, and no one was in the mood to do any schoolwork after that.

Wed. had 2 highlights for Ben......1: his piano teacher was sick, so his piano lesson was cancelled (postponed actually), and 2: he got to watch the homeschool taekwondo class, and we signed him up. Suffice it to say he is thrilled, and Dad is now happy to know that in the future if someone tries to beat him up, he'll at least know something to do. Actually, it is a great class. Many of his good friends are in it, and the teacher is both someone we know & trust, as well as being a phenomenal instructor. He should quickly learn how to yell, kick, say "YES SIR!!!!", and brush his teeth twice daily (they have to fill out a "good habits" chart every week). A happy coincidence is that this was the last week of the girls' writing classes till Jan. so even though I added one trip to the schedule, I lost 2. Yay!!!

Looking forward to busy day tomorrow. Church, then piano recital right after (about a 20 min drive), Oliver rehearsal from 5-7:30. Mark has happily volunteered for rehearsal duty this time. Church is having the annual turkey/testimony/pie contest tomorrow night, and traditionally there are testimonies interspersed with music throughout. Mark is the music traditionalist in the family, and not being entirely warmed up to some of the more contemporary worship styles, he often abstains when he knows that "THE BAND" is playing. Lets just say that the arrangement will suit us both, and there it is. No worries. Hopefully they'll be back in time to get some pie, for Ben's sake. Oh....and I need to make sure he watches the Victor Borge video before church ( I know....a real spiritual way to begin the Lord's day). His piano teacher wants him to be inspired to be his funniest when he plays his "Fly in my waltz" piece at the recital, and he forgot to watch it today. She did say that he cannot bring the fly swatter *this time*. She said maybe she'll let him if he does this piece for the Christmas recital.

Tried to do some "power shopping" this afternoon. This involved a fairly short list, and a couple of shopping bunny trails. I'm a slow shopper, so bunny trails are never short, but Kohls did have an excellent sale going on....ah well. I did actually get everything on my list, it just took awhile. And Ben was ticked off when I got home because he has $10 burning a hole in his pocketses, and he was determined that Dad or Mom *should* take HIM somewhere to shop. Being somewhat thwarted, he was NOT a happy camper that I took so long to get home. It was a "tough-darts-hombre" moment.

Thus endeth the day. God is still good.

Thus endeth the day.....

2007-11-10T20:32:00.000-08:00

not a bad Saturday altogether. I read Daily Bread online this morning for devotions, and it was a good time of just pondering my priorities. The theme was on valuing Christ more than possessions/anything else, and the passage was on the rich fool who put all his confidence in his riches, but was spiritually poor. Sometimes I like to read those passages and then self-righteously put myself in a *different* category. Well, lets just say I was properly convicted about ways in which I, too, am guilty of wrongly valuing things that will , frankly, burn someday. I need to be consistently in the Word to keep my eyes focused on Christ.

Speaking of priorities, After first spending time with the Lord, I was extra nice to Mark and made him eggs and pancakes for breakfast. He was duly appreciative (smile), and even fixed the tail light of my van and took the kids to the park later this afternoon. I was out doing some shopping while they were at the park, and came home to find that the poor guy pulled his calf muscle pretty badly playing with Ben. So he's limping around with his walking stick.

I picked up some much needed undies and new pjs for Ben, who has spent the last 4 days wearing the same clothes day and night (no, he actually HAS other clothes....he just doesn't care, and , yes, you'd think that I, his mother would actually *notice* !). Anyway, he's grown out of most of his pjs. He immediately put on his camouflage jammies and ran up to get his "m16" (see above). Dad and I assured him that he was comPLETEly invisible (wink wink). He gave us the sideways smile that means "I think you're joking......aren't you??"

My mom and dad (retired missionaries...another story) live only a couple miles away, so they came for dinner and to watch Ratatouille tonight. Took first pictures of the piggies tonight...they're so cuuuuute.

cookies

2007-11-10T14:01:00.000-08:00

Well, Cami is currently making cc cookies and driving Kendra mad by insisting that none be eaten before all are baked. I mean....how illogical is that?? Then you don't get them fresh out of the oven (like an hour makes that much difference?)! For the record, I am siding with Kendra on this one. Ummmm.

Endured the quarterly obligatory homeschool meeting today. It was a wonderful meeting, as meetings go, but not being a meeting sort of person, it was a bit of a yawn. There was a mini seminar on the importance of reading/reading aloud/ways to make reading aloud exciting etc. that was actually very good, in all fairness. Being an unrepentant bibliophile, there wasn't anything that *I* learned particularly, but it was gratifying to see families with younger kids being encouraged to fearlessly read aloud to their children. Lets just say that poor Ben, being the youngest of my hooligans, has had to endure literature that is a bit of a stretch on occasion, in order to keep the older hooligans happy. They simply refuse to stop being read to. Thus he's had to endure Great Expectations and the like, in between the lighter selections. His own personal taste in literature tends toward instruction manuals, chess books, Asterix the Gaul, and Wayside School, so Lord knows it's a good thing I read some classics out loud. He loudly informed me yesterday that he hated and refused to read any more historical fiction. "Ummmm.....ok, son.......you can think that if you want.......won't change what I make you read, but if you want to think that, I can't exactly stop you." Sigh. To be continued.

The cookies are waiting for me to eat them....resistance is futile....they must be assimilated.

Inaugural post

2007-11-09T23:24:00.000-08:00

Well, we'll see how long I can keep this up - ha! I've pondered for awhile on the benefits of at least keeping some sort of running commentary on life. For posterity's sake if nothing else. Life seems to gallop on, kids get older by the minute, wrinkles appear overnight, and I, like many others tend to not count all the blessings I should. In honor, then, of the upcoming holiday, I'll duly note that I'm thankful for:
1. A God who knows my sin, yet saved me anyway.
2. A husband who hugs and kisses me at least twice a day (coming and going), in spite of a less than perfect house or a less than perfect me.
3. 3 flawed children who are none the less priceless gifts of God
4. Family, friends, and a church that provide Godly wisdom and support
5. Everything else that I can't recall because it's late and I need to go to bed

For the record, hooligan central has 3 hooligans, Kendra (dd age 16, fun loving but uber-logical), Cami (age 14, my creative, adventurous, slightly moody one), and Benjamin (ds age 11, ultra musical, passionate, intense, explosive, curious.....and totally exhausting!!). Also sharing the premises are 4 ROUS's (rodents of usual size), namely 2 guinea pigs - Crega & Padme - and 2 hamsters - Alexander and Mysti.

And so it begins.....